144 
Hoping that no one of the several correspondents who 
| have written to us relative to the alleged fraudulent con¬ 
duct of Mr. Edwards will consider that we treat their 
communications contumeliously, we must firmly decline 
inserting them. This is not because we view the sub¬ 
ject with indifference, nor because those communica¬ 
tions are feebly written, but because Mr. Edwards is 
fully arraigned at the bar of public opinion, and by 
evidence, and by evidence only, must he now stand 
or fall. It matters nothing whether one of our con¬ 
temporaries flippantly repudiates the charge, nor 
whether another contemporary roughly sustains it— 
they are but the opinions, and prejudiced opinions 
too, of the individual writers—neither weakening nor 
strengthening the fact that Dr. Bushell, Dr. Sanders, 
and some others equally unimpeachable, after hearing 
evidence, have publicly charged Mr. Edwards with 
obtaining a prize with Tulips, of which one was not 
his own. Mr. Edwards denies this charge, but he has 
brought no counter-evidence, and if he does not pro¬ 
duce some such evidence, as that of his gardener, or of 
Mr. Turner, of Slough, to contradict the statement, for 
the Tulip shown is said to have belonged to the latter, 
then the charge must be received as incapable of con¬ 
tradiction, and Mr. Edwards must abide the conse¬ 
quences, There is yet time for such vindication, and 
Mr. Edwards may be taking steps to demonstrate his 
innocence, but we know of none, and if he is taking 
such steps, it is very desirable that the public should 
be aware of them. Were bis assailants less honourable 
men, to be silent and inactive might be a wise and 
dignified course ; but being such men as those we have 
named, silence will be taken as a confession of guilt, 
and inactivity as a proof that no rebutting evidence 
can be produced. 
We have endeavoured, with perfect impartiality and 
brevity, to exhibit the question as it stands now at 
issue, and we should not have done so if the interests of 
florists, and the integrity and influence of metropolitan 
floricultural societies, were not jeopardized by the con¬ 
sequences which may arise from Mr. Edwards’s alleged 
delinquency. If he succeeds in establishing his free¬ 
dom from the charge—and sincerely do we wish for 
such a conclusion—then will he, and those with whom 
he is connected, deserve additional support and respect 
for the firmness they have evinced; but, on the other 
hand, if the charge remains unrefuted, then must he 
cease from holding office, and from even beiug a mem¬ 
ber in any floricultural society. We speak thus em¬ 
phatically, because we feel that every honourable man 
will be with us in saying that it would be ruinous to 
the influential character of any society, to give the 
slightest countenance to the suspicion that they think 
it a matter of little consequence for a florist to exhibit 
flowers dishonestly. To any society showing so low a 
standard of morality, no man of character would con- 
j tribute either his subscription or his flowers. Feeling 
j this, this alone, has induced us to recur to the subject; 
j but before concluding we will observe, that it has been 
: painfully impressed upon us by more than one relative 
December 4. 
letter, that some of their writers do not seem to have 
a very correct estimate of what is the duty of any one, 
who sees the agents of another man active in enabling 
him to exhibit flowers fraudulently. They seem to 
think that if they observe an exhibitor’s gardener 
employed to collect, or as one calls it, “ to cadge,” 
flowers, tbe observer of such a proceeding is not bound 
to protect the interests of the honest exhibitor, by reveal¬ 
ing what he has witnessed. We need not argue how 
erroneous is such an opinion—we need not dwell upon 
the most obvious of all rules of criminal law—he who 
does a crime by the hands of another is as guilty as if 
those hands were his own ; but we must protest against 
tbe supineness that allowed such proceedings, without 
dragging them into broad day-light. It is disagreeable 
to have to act this honest part, but it is a duty, and 
were we to see such “cadging” tomorrow, we would 
take care to let the offence be perfected, and then drag 
the culprit forth, whether he propelled a wheelbarrow 
or reclined in a chai'iot. 
NEW PLANTS. 
THEIR PORTRAITS, BIOGRAPHIES, AND CULTURE. 
Lobb’s Sarcopod ( Sarcopodium Lobbii, var. Hen- 
shallii). — Gardener's Magazine of Botany, iii. 269.—The 
original Sarcopod was first discovered by Mr. W. Lobb, 
after whom it was named, in the Botanical Register, by 
Dr. Lindley; and this variety of it, which has paler 
flowers than the species, was also named by the same 
author, in compliment to Mr. John Henshall, who dis¬ 
covered it in Java, whence he sent it to his patrons, the 
Messrs. Rollinson, of Tooting, a firm much celebrated 
for their extensive collection of air plants, and for their 
success in growing them. The general aspect of these 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
