May 9th, 1913.

A fire had severely damaged St Catherine's, Hatcham, on 6 May. The Vicar, the Revd H. J. H. Truscott, had been reported in the press as voicing suspicions about arson, possibly by suffragettes. On the Wednesday, the Bishop of London, Dr Winnington-Ingram, had given thanks to God for the deliverance of St Paul's Cathedral from a suspected bomb. "We say in our own way, in the human way, that it was only by an accident that the lever was by mistake turned to the right instead of to the left, or the chancel would have been a wreck to-day."

THERE is good reason for believing that the destruction of St Catherine's Church, Hatcham, on Tuesday was the work of Suffragist fanatics. It is less certain whether the intention of the deluded creatures who placed what appeared to be a bomb in St Paul's Cathedral was to injure the building, or merely to scare the authorities with a sham bomb. Either way, it as an abominable thing to do, for, if merely a hoax was attempted, it shows how far a section of the Suffragists has departed from the standard of common decency. No place is sacred in their eyes. Not content with wrecking public and private property, they must profane the House of God. The Home Secretary has done something to atone for the way in which, until lately, he failed to exercise the strong arm of the law for the repression of disorder. Now that he is displaying some vigour, he finds that the powers of mischief have waxed violent beyond the ordinary resources of the law to restrain them. But he has only to ask for augmented authority and it will be willingly granted him by consent of the nation. This state of continued outrages cannot be allowed to last if the resources of the State are, as we believe them to be, practically inexhaustible.