C.B.: Never; such a suggestion is utterly unjustifiable.
Mr Justice Blackburn: If any issues in the action depended on this course of proceeding, Mr O'Malley, I should not object, but I cannot see that these questions have any relevance to the matter before us.
Mr O'M.: I think I shall be able to show by a few questions more the importance of the plaintiff's answers. Are you (to plaintiff) a writer in the National Reformer? And have you written under the name of "Iconoclast"?
C.B.: I decline to answer these questions, because prosecutions for penalties are at present pending against the National Reformer at the instance of the late Government.
Mr O'M.: Did you write this passage, which appeared in the National Reformer: "There is a great big monkey," etc. [fable already referred to on p. 233].
C.B., after some hesitation: I might refuse to answer this question on the same ground I have refused to answer the other questions. I prefer, however, to answer, and I say that passage did appear in a paper with which I was connected, but was not written by me. It was part of a translation of a German fable, and was copied nearly two years ago into the Saturday Review without the context. If the context were read with it, the meaning of the passage would be entirely different It related as much to Hinduism as to Christianity. I wrote a reply to the Saturday Review at the time.[127]
Mr O'M.: Did you ever take legal proceedings against the Saturday Review for publishing this article?
C.B.: No; I considered it a criticism on my opinions, and answered it by other articles in other papers. I should never sue a journal for an attack on my opinions.
Mr O'M.: Do you believe in the truth of the Christian religion?