Allow us to make a very necessary correction. … Mrs. Besant, who originated the circular, was asked directly whether it was connected with the charges or whether it was in any way aimed at Mr. Judge. She gave an emphatic denial to both questions to many who took the same view expressed by you.
Another fact is not generally known, and leads people—yourself among others—into unconsciously committing an injustice. The charges against Mr. Judge were never substantiated, and the committee appointed to inquire into them declared that they were illegally laid.
(The letter then concludes with a high tribute to Mr. Judge’s character for truthfulness and every other virtue.)
Now, as regards the statement about the intention of the Circular, we will only say that one co-signatory of it at least has committed himself to the precise view of it which this letter denies. Nor is it obvious why the heads of any society should issue a round robin to say it is naughty to tell taradiddles, unless some current reference were intended to the affairs of the society.
Besides, this, however, there is unmistakably conveyed the impression that Mr. Judge’s accusers failed to substantiate their case, and that there was something actually “illegal,” in the ordinary sense of the word, about some part of their conduct.
As readers of “Isis Very Much Unveiled” are aware, both these things are absolutely untrue. The simple fact was that, owing to the objections raised by Mr. Judge, no opportunity was given for the charges to be either substantiated or the reverse; while the only justification for the statement that they were “illegally laid” is such as can be squeezed out of the fact that the Theosophical Pickwickians were persuaded by Mr. Judge that inquiry was forbidden by the constitution of their society.
It only remains to add, to complete the disingenuousness of this very Theosophistical letter, that its signatories authenticate its statements by flaunting the title of “Members of the Committee of Investigation”; the committee referred to being the one which met only to decide that it could not investigate, and the members of it as such having no knowledge whatever of the evidence either on one side or the other!
