Nevertheless, with all this amiable “Yapp-ing” he did _not_ “get in
touch” with the Chairman of the Sugar Commission, then Sir Charles
Bathurst, who wrote himself and told me he had never heard a word of
the affair till he saw it in the newspapers. On this point my solicitor
wrote as follows: “I am glad to hear that you have a letter from Sir
Charles Bathurst, expressing sympathy. I cannot, however, overlook
the fact that whereas Sir Arthur Yapp had no power apart from Sir
Charles to take cognisance of facts which I brought to his notice with
a view to stopping an unjustifiable prosecution calculated to do you
an injury, Sir Charles Bathurst had ample power and did not exercise
it, although approached by Sir Arthur Yapp. I do not think the Food
Control Department even troubled to send the case to their counsel, but
merely seized the opportunity to accept a statement which was not in
conformity with the evidence, was a violation of the highest principles
of justice, and a slur upon the summary jurisdiction of the land.”
And so the case went on. Yapp meantime addressed a crowd on Tower
Hill and assured them “Marie Corelli’s sugar had been taken from
her”--which was a flaring fiction as there was no excess of sugar to
take. He failed to mention that the victim he thus pilloried had given
far more than the sugar’s worth to the Y.M.C.A., of which he posed
as the pious and conscientious Head! But “that’s another story”! He
felt perfectly justified, however, in handing over my personal letters
to him (marked “Private”) to a Mr. Wise, his secretary, I believe,
whom my solicitor found reading them to his lady clerks by way of a
little entertainment--and so altogether I rank Sir Arthur Yapp with
Shakespeare’s Brutus, and here express my profound acknowledgments.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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