Page:Isis very much unveiled - being the story of the great Mahatma hoax (IA b24884273).pdf/147

Rh But that was not always Mr. Judge’s line. After all, somebody must have been at pains to see to the seal impression in those missives which Mr. Judge vouched for—to say nothing of such other external and material things as the texture of the paper, quite unlike any found elsewhere, and the handwriting and signature,” all of which used to be triumphantly cited as evidence by Mr. Judge’s satellites (the present quotation is from a pamphlet on “Mahatmas,” embellished with learned references to “Lord Bacon,” which is by Mr. Judge’s private secretary, and bears the imprimatur of Mr. Judge). Mr. Judge denies that it was he who called special attention to the seal impression as authenticating his first pioneer missive in 1891 (the “Note the Seal” missive, as I have called it). As he does not deny my statement that he excused himself to the others present for not showing the contents of the letter, perhaps he will explain what it was that he did call attention to, if not the seal and signature. But why labour the point, when there is the direct evidence afforded by one of his own seal-bearing letters—one which he has not denied—in which he wrote, “I believe the Master agrees with me, in which case I will ask him to put his seal here”—and “plump on the written word came the seal” (“Isis,” p. 44). In those days at any rate Mr. Judge was of those who “think these little decorations of importance,” as he now puts it.

“You trace it [the seal] to her [H.P.B.], and there you leave it,” Mr. Judge says; “and then you think I am obliged to prove I did not get it—to prove negatives.” But I traced it rather farther than to H.P.B, I traced the seal to Lansdowne-road in 1888 (Mr. B. Keightley’s evidence). I traced an impression of it on a letter from Mr. Judge at Lansdowne-road in 1888 (Colonel Olcott’s evidence). I showed that when Mr. Judge went back to America, the seal went too (telegram impression, New York, 1890; evidence of Mr. B. Keightley). I showed that thenceforward it appeared on missives produced by Mr. Judge, and on no others, again and again. I showed how, in the missives planted on Colonel Olcott, as if dubious how far the Colonel would carry on the complaisance of Madame Blavatsky, Mr. Judge’s complete letter-writer tried the seal on gradually; first, an illegible impression, and then a bold one; how, when the Colonel