"Any person who has seen a man writing Blasphemous sentences on Gates or other places in the neighbourhood of Liskeard, is requested to communicate immediately with Messrs. Pedler and Grylls, Liskeard, or with the Rev. R. Hobhouse, St. Ive Rectory."
Whether the perturbed Rector of St Ive found out anything, or whether ashamed, as he might well be, at being mixed up in so miserable a business, he retired from it, and the Rev. Paul Bush appeared in his place as a spiritual detective on the pounce, and a poor, eccentric well-sinker, one Thomas Pooley, was accused of writing in chalk incoherent words in a hand only intelligible to the all-construing eyes of the policeman of the Church, who caused to be issued the following ponderous summons in her Majesty's name:—
"To Thomas Pooley, of the Borough of Liskeard in the County of Cornwall, Labourer.
"Cornwall to wit, Whereas Information and Complaint (a) hath this day been laid before the undersigned, one of Her Majesty's Justices of the Peace in and (b) for the said County of Cornwall by The Reverend Paul Bush of the Parish of Duloe, in the said County, for that you the said Thomas Pooley on the twenty-second of May last at the Parish of Duloe, in the said County, did unlawfully and wilfully compose, write and publish a certain scandalous, impious, blasphemous and profane Libel of and concerning the Holy Scriptures and the Christian Religion, and for having blasphemously spoken against God and profanely scoffed at the Holy Scripture, and exposed it to contempt and ridicule, and also for having spoken against Christianity and the established religion.
"These are therefore to command you in Her Majesty's name, to be and appear on Wednesday the 1st day of July next at 10 o'clock in the Forenoon, at Treean Gate in the Parish of Lanewath in the said County, before such said Justices of the Peace for the County as may then be there, to answer to the said Information and Complaint, and to be further dealt with according to Law.
"Given under my hand and Seal this 27th day of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and fifty-seven, at Liskeard in the County aforesaid.
"James Glencross."
Notes on the summons were:—"(a) If upon Oath insert 'On Oath.' (b) Erase the words in italic when summons is issued by Justice acting out of jurisdiction in which he resides."
There is more untruth and holy malevolence in this summons than Pooley was ever known to be guilty of in all his life. Mr. Bush charges Mr. Pooley with "wilfully composing" the words complained of. Everybody in the parish knew that he had not the mental coherence to "compose" anything. He had neither spoken against God—for he was a believer in Him—nor was he a preacher either in pulpit or on street corner. Nor did he "speak" about God, except when he was being stripped in gaol. His "scoffing against the Holy Scriptures" merely meant that he was incensed against priests. The charge that he had published a "scandalous, impious, blasphemous, and profane libel" was simply the reckless, false, professional language of the clergyman and lawyer who drew up the summons, which would be counted unscrupulous and venomous in other persons. In this summons we have the same profanation of the Queen's name as we have already seen. How can a monarch expect his office or character to be held in esteem who permits his or her name to be cited for the purposes of any bigot who has spite in his heart and falsehood on his lips? People cease to respect a monarch who has no respect for himself.
There was more of the evil spirit of untruth in the charges in the summons than in all Mr. Pooley's vague and honest anger. I went down to Duloe to see Mr. Bush, and found him residing in a spacious house, with a pleasant outlook of roads and fields before it, while poor Pooley lived in wells. Why should one so well-placed as the Rev. Paul Bush conspire to procure twenty-one months' imprisonment for this friendless, half-demented parishioner? Very likely Mr. Bush was by nature a kind-hearted clergyman in whom theology generated—