Note 17 — Mrs. Besant's latest Assertions and claims examined.

The original documents appear in the O. E. Critic for June 21st, 1922, and include a confession signed by a priest of the L. C. C. who states that he was "led astray by those whom I considered to be my superiors both morally and spiritually" adding "Wedgwood absolutely declines to give up the mal-practice." Wedgwood fled to Algeria at the end of March. A cable from Sydney dated May 30th states that "Mrs. Besant refused to answer any enquiry in reference to Wedgwood. Police now holding an enquiry into the charges against Leadbeater." Dr. Stokes concludes his comments on the documents as follows:—"And Annie Besant, having repeatedly been informed of the facts, not only refused to look into them, but launched her anathemas against those who criticised, even threatening them with expulsion from the E. S., and even very recently cabling to Wedgwood that he made a mistake in resigning!—It is on Annie Besant, more than on any other one person, that the responsibility for the present scandalous condition in the T. S. rests. The best of societies may have its black sheep and it is not to be blamed if it does its best to purge itself. But it is Annie Besant, with her tools and sycophants, who has ever concealed and denied the palpable facts, or, where they could not be denied, has palliated, excused and even defended them, throwing over them a veil of esoteric glamour, supporting such scoundrels as Leadbeater and Wedgwood, apparently in order the better to serve her ambitions. A vote of confidence in Annie Besant to-day either betrays total ignorance of the facts, or associates those who give it with the grossest forms of moral rottenness." See Addendum for Mr. Piddington, K. C's opinion on Mrs Besant's conduct in Australia last May; also Mr. Hugh Gillespie's evidence of her use of the Esoteric School as a "political machine" to secure her "ascendancy in the various bodies to which E. S. members have gained access."