From the Clock Tower, November 4th 1896

Mr. Truman Press v. "Truth."

The following epistle has been sent to me :­-

The Hertfordshire Standard & St. Albans Citizen.
St. Albans, October 27, 1896.

SIR,   On page 937 in your issue of Truth for the 15th inst., you refer to the book-publishing department of my business, and in reply I desire to call your attention to the full statement, together with a challenge to you, which I have printed in the last number of my Hertfordshire Standard.

Yours, &c.                           TRUMAN PRESS

Unfortunately I do not take the Hertfordshire Standard regularly, but somebody has forwarded me a cutting containing what I suppose to be the "full statement" and "challenge" to which Mr. Truman Press refers. From this I conclude that Mr. Truman Press is suffering from an acute form of mental disturbance, accompanied by hallucination, He says that I have accused him of indulging in "some sort of trade trick in connection with his publication of his various biographical works," and he suggests that the trick charged against him is that of charging £3 3s. for a book which can be got up at 2s. 6d" and he accordingly delivers me his challenge to produce a similar book at 2s. 6d. a copy. Nothing to the effect suggested, or capable of that construction at all, has appeared in Truth respecting Mr. Truman Press. The reference to this gentleman in Truth of October 15th was as follows :-

It appears that Truman is now engaged in an effort to induce all the fools in Surrey to pay him sums of nine or twelve guineas for the privilege of having their biographies and portrait inserted in a book which he is publishing by subscription. This is a trick on which Truman and Manning Press have been engaged for years, and as long as they can find idiots enough to keep the game going, no one can blame them for working it for all it is worth.

To this I added that my office boy contemplates publishing a volume of biographies "in the Manning Press style" at 2s. 6d. per head, beginning with "Middlesex Muffs," to be followed by "Nottingham Noodles," "Yorkshire Yokels," and others in the same well-known style. If, therefore, Truman Press wants to challenge anybody, he should address himself to my office-boy. He would do better, however, to encourage a brother biographer by sending the boy half-a-crown, together with his own portrait and a few facts about his life; in which case the lad will get to work as soon as possible on a volume to be entitled "Hertfordshire Humbugs.

Seriously, the only imputation that has been made against Mr. Truman Press in Truth is that he trades upon the vanity and simplicity of nonentities  desirous of immortalising themselves, and unless he can show that this is not the case, he had better hold his peace.

Truth, Nov. 5th, 1896.