antedating "liars, damned liars, and experts" Nov. 26, 1885

[Stephen Goranson]

In "The Whole Duty of a Chemist," unsigned article in response to an
address by Prof. Wm. Odling, Nature, Nov. 26, 1885, p.74:
A well-known lawyer, now a judge, once grouped witnesses into three classes:
simple liars, damned liars, and experts.

This antedates the Dec. 5, 1885 diary note by Thomas Henry Huxley.
Along with other reported quotations, this appears to confirm the view
of Robert Giffen in 1892 that the above saying (and variants) had "lately been
adapted to throw dirt on statistics." This adaptation apparently occurred after
the lifetime of Benjamin Disraeli. The saying with statistics is, so far, known
from 1891, and perhaps the leading candidate for the originator is Charles W.
Dilke. Readers of the Minutes of Evidence of the Royal Commission on Labour
Sitting as a Whole (two editions with different pagination) can follow the
spread of the saying and see that Courtney heard it (with reference to a
statesman) from E.R.L. Gould. Gould importantly attributed the statistics
statement to Dilke, as did two 1891 newspapers.

Stephen Goranson
http://www.duke.edu/~goranson

PS The mentioned judge may be George W. W. Bramwell, at least, according to an
attribution in Notes & Queries 9th S. X Oct. 4, 1902, p.270. The Green Bag
[Boston] 16 (1904) 337 also so attributes it, "according to St. James' Budget"
[London].

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