Aet. 41, to Alfred Fletcher, editor of the Daily Chronicle. See 1894-01-11 to the Editor of the Daily Chronicle for the start of this controversy and additional notes. William Alexander Coote (1842-1919) was Secretary of the National Vigilance Association.
A “report of the case” in Leamington Spa appeared in in the Leamington Spa Courier (8 June 1889) and in London’s St. James’s Gazette (11 June 1889); the Saturday Review (22 June 1889) commented.
In the Daily Chronicle (18 January 1894) Coote claimed that NVA business was withdrawn from the publisher of The Confessional Unmasked when the Truth accusation was published.
Regarding the Leamington Case, he offered to open the NVA’s books to public scrutiny, in order to prove that particular prosecution was in good faith. The newspaper controversy then ended.
On 7 September 1888 the NVA attempted to arraign the publisher of Boccaccio’s Decameron but failed. Likewise a London bookseller named W.M. Thomson was charged with distributing obscenity when he was caught selling The Heptaméron, published by Vizetelly. The prosecution collapsed on 28 May 1889 when the NVA failed to enter a copy of the book into evidence.
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