Some Memories of the Tichborne Case.

Bruce Herald, Volume XXXX, Issue 98, 20 December 1904, Page 3

Some Memories of the Tichborne Case.

— • [By A. Chichele Plowdbn.] THE* RISE OF THE" CURTAIN.---j Certainly when the trial opened I there were not wanting signs of the public interest that was excited; noi was anything spared by the authori ties to give dignity and importance tc the occasion. It may be questioned, indeed, at this distance of time whethei the enfls of justice might not have beer equally served with a little less pomp and circumstance. A vulgar and.impudent imposture had been exposed and shattered— shattered so effectively as to leave no possible room tor doubt in any reasonable mind. It was right and proper that a prosecution for perjury should follow ; but surely to obtain a conviction was a simple matter — the work of a few days at. the Old Bailey. And, if 50, what was there in the prisoner, except his audacity, that he should be tried with more ceremony than any other perjurer? Would not the mere fact of treating him almost as if he were a State prisoner dispose people to believe, that there was something in the background after all, some mystery still to be cleared up ; and, after all, what did it matter; whether he was Arthur Orton or not ? And why ( should the Crown put itself to the trouble and expense of proving such an issue? Why not be content with showing once more, swittly and decisively, that, whoever else he might be, he was not Sir Roger Tichborne ? It must be presumed that these considerations were not overlooked; but they were not allowed to prevail. The Attorney-General claimed to have a trial at Bar — that is to say, a trial before three judges — a form of proceeding which is extremely rare, and to which recourse is seldom, or never, had except in cases of exceptional difficulty or importance. THE JUDGES AND COUNSEL. The trial began' in due course in April, 1873, and was not concluded till Pebruary, 1874. It ended, as everybody knows, in the conviction of the Claimant as Arthur Ortdn, and m his being sentenced to fourteen years' penal servitude. The three judges who composed the tribunal were Sir Alex : ander Cockburn, Chief Justice of England, and JustUfes Mellor and Lush — a judicial trio in every way worthy of the best Traditions of the English Bench. Nor were the counsel who appeared for the Crown less distinguished. Mr Hawkins, Q.C., assisted by Serjeant Parry, and such eminent juniors as Charles Bowen and J. C. Mathew, conducted the prosecution. For the Claimant appeared the notorious Dr Kenealy and Mr Macmahon, both ot them members of the ! Oxford Circuit. SOME NEW MATERIAL. In a volume of reminiscences I have lately published I have dwelt on some of the incidents of this memorable trial, and I must not allow myself to be tempted into going over the same ground again. Nor, indeed, am I under much temptation to do so, for, thanks to a correspondent who happens to have come across my book, I have been placed in possession of certain matter which is both new and interesting. In order to give point and substance to this new material it is necessary to refer briefly to what I may call the bottom facts of the Tichborne case. It was common ground at the trial that Sir Roger Tichborne was ship-wrecked on a voyage in the Bella from Rio to New York in 1854. It was the Claimant's, case that though shipwrecked Sir Roger (i.e., himself) was not drowned ; that he was picked up by a tessel called the Osprey and taken to Melbourne, and on his trial for perjury he produced a witness, Jean Luie, who actually swore to have been on the Osprey at the time, and to have taken part in the rescue. How it was that the Claimant came to select the Osprey as the vessel that rescued him is the point that is made clear in the interesting letter from my correspondent. "I am probably," he writes, " the only person living who can tell you who the Claimant was;" and he continues almost in these words: At the time when the Bella foundered two vessels were advertised^ first ships sailing for Melbournefrom Liverpool — the Themis and the Osprey. The Themis was the choice — the owner^ of the Osprey, having a good charter offered to go to New Orleans, never went to Melbourne at all. Nevertheless, it was the Osprey which the Claimant said had rescued him. Befote, however, he committed himself to that vessel he called with Baigent on the owner of the Themis, and related to him the story cf his rescue. After hearing him without interruption the owner said, "It is vary strange jhat my captain never reported the rescue to me, unfortunately, he is not now living. v " My brother-in-law, Mr M., was in 1854 my agent at Melbourne. He is now with me here, and we "will hear what he says." M.. was accordingly sent for, and to him the Claimant repeated ih detail how he had been rescued, and the kind treatment he had received from the captain of the Themis, which continued after he reached Melbourne. In answer to questions by M. the Claimant traced on a piece* of paper a description of M.'s office at Melbourne, which was correct in every particular.

- M. expressed himself satisfied, and turning to the owner suggested that the log-book of the Themis should be hunted'for, and that inquiries should be made of the mate of the VessA, who was /expected in Liverpool in a few 1 weeks. , This was enough for the Claimant so c far a$ the Themis was concerned. It r was "necessary to fix on some other vessel advertised to sail about the 5 same time, and no doubt this was how ' the Osprey came to be selected. r In the meantime the mate ot the } Themis duly arrived at Liverpool, and } bejng shown a photograph* of the [ Clairriamy. which he had left at the office, was asked it he recognised him. ' "Of course I do," was the reply. L "He sailed in the Themis, from Liver--1 pool, steerage, .and was entered on the passenger list as Jenkins, of Bridport ; 1 he had not a stitch of baggage — just the ' clothes on his back — and when we got in cold weather he had to be supplied with clothing.' On landing he went Jo : Mr M.'s office, gave a draft on England ' for about which on presentation ; was never met." ! , THE MEANING OF IT. ■ This in brief iS the story as told by : my correspondent, who vouches for its , accuracy by his signature. How it : came about that so valuable^ a piece of evidence was not made use of at the ' trial is somewhat remarkable, for not 1 only does it show why the "Claimant 1 was driven to hit on the Osprey, but it establishes the further fact that at a date not given he had sailed as Jenkins, ; of Bridport, in the Themis /for. Melbourne ; one of the two vessels which were advertised as sailing for Mcli bourne at a date which would jhave made it possible to be in the latitude of Brazil when the Bella foundered. But for the fact that the mate of the Themis was still ' living/ and fear of the- log book, the Claimant woulrj doubtless have selected the Themis as the ship that rescued him, and would have been able to use his "knowledge of the equipment of that vessel with damaging effect. There is, of course, no reason for doubting that Jenkins, of Bridport, '■ and Arthur Orton were one and thfe same ; but it would have added to khe* completeness of thistrew ihfortrtitibn to ' know why Arthur Orton went to Austr_lia, > ari_ Why he should tuve sailed • under the name of Jenkins. WHAT THE CLAIMANT DIDN'T KNOW. But this is not the only letter I have received containing new matter. Another correspondent adds from his I own experience to the long list of incidents, trifling in therriselves, which told in the end with such cumulative force against the Claimant. " I was travelling in a railway carriage when I heard two soldiers discussing the Tichborne case. Joining in the conversation, I : said,' 'I am not well up in military matters, but what satisfies me that the Claimant is a pretender is his Stonyhurst evidence.' *So am 1' said an elderly man in the carriage, who had hitherto kept silent, ' I was a servant r at Stonyhurst when Mr Tichborne was there, and I used to have to wait on him. The Claimant has been asked whether he had any special amusement when he was at Stonyhurst, and he does not remember any except smoking under a particular tree, but if he were really Mr Tichborne he could not forget it any more than I can.' ' What was it ?' I asked. ' Well, it was a cruel sport, and I am ashamed to say I helped him in it. We used to get as ftlany cats as we could, and he worried them with dogs in a certain meadow.' " J THE CLAIMANT AND LADY. The cost of the two Tiehborne trials, as may be easily imagined, was colossal. It was estimated at something" like one-half of which fell on the unfortunate Tichborne estates. How eternally tfue the French saying, if you want Mo find a cause for any trouble, " Cherchez la femme." The real source oi the partial success that attended the Claimant was to be found, not in himself, but in the mother of the man he endeavored to personate. The Claimant hrmself was to a large extent the victim of circumstances, hurried on by little strokes of unexpected good fortune, and by the zeal — anything but disinterested — of his supporters. But all the help he received, from one quarter or another, would have availed him nothing but for the stimulus given to his imposture by Lady Tichbcpne. Standing absolutely alone in her belief that her son bad n<jt been drowned, she advertised for some news of him in the newspapers j and it was in answer to one of these advertisements that she learnt that a man answering to the description of her son had been found in the guise "of a small butcher in Queensland. This was enough — "gui vult decipi decipiatur." So fox from the Claimant "answering to; 'the de^ scription," there was not a point or a feature in which one man can differ - from another in 'which the Claimant did 1 not differ from the slim youth who was * drowned in the Bella. But the mother's mind was made up. Whether 1 she suffered from pure monomania, or i whether motives were at work into which one need not inquire, she. >~ " recognised " her son, and thus gave - an enormous impetus to his pre- - tensions. I * THEIR MEETING. - The interview between the two was ■ one of the most dramatic features in the history of the case. The Claimant not ' without some misgivings of the iitipres--1 sion he might make, feigned* sickness, - and, arranged for the first meeting to > take place as he lay in bed in a dark-

ened room, with only his face visible above the bedclothes. The (face ought to have been enpugh, but the old lady was not in a mood to be convinced against her will by such a trifle. Shep Expressed herself satisfied. Her maternal love not only swallowed the Claimant, but she took to her arms his wife —an illiterate young woman whom he had married in Queensland ; and, as if this was not sufficient in the way of i good fortune, she handed over to the i Claimant a number of ietters/~and diaries written by her son, which, no doubt, were of the greatest service to him in getting up his part. The mother's recognition was, indeed, the . turning-point of the Claimant's fortunes. Had she rejected him there would have been an end of the business. By acknowledging him she not only gave an ! immense impetus to the traud, but i made herself the guilty cause of much j of the ruinous expense that had to be charged to the Tichborue estate. , [To be Continued.]