THE TICHBORNE CASE: SOME MEMORIES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2649, 21 December 1904, Page 81

THE TICHBORNE CASE : SOME MEMORIES.

(By A. Chichelb Plowdest, in T.P. s !

Weekly.) . \ It is difficult to ''anyone wKo remembers the Tichborne case, and the interest it '. aroused, to realise that it all happened 30 years ago, that -very few of those who took part in it survive, and that the greatest impostor of modern times _is rapidly becoming as shadowy a personage as^Perkin Warbeck or any other pretender of the past. ' The interest that the trial excited was not confined, as might be supposed, to thcXaw Courts- and the clubs ; • it spread to all ranks, and. was as much in evidence in the purlieus of the East End as it was in the drawing rooms of Mayfair. There was. prejudice more than enough everywhere ; but it was one of the * curious features of the case-"' that much of the popular sympathy that was felt for the claimant rested -on the illogical basis ttat he" was one of tie people and was being "choused" out v of his rights. ' -'• — Human Credulity.— j If the issue had been simply- whether the claimant was or was not Sir Roger, the general interest would not have been so marked ; but' -the fact that there was another issue involved — viz., not only whether the claimant was- Sir Roger, but whether he was not Arthur Orton, the • butcher -from- Wapping — gave a popular , aspect to the case, and had' the effect of enlisting on the side of the claimant a host of admirers whose sympathies other- ] wise would never have been stirred). On the other hand,' itis only fan* to say that among the better educated and informed 1 there were not a few whose obstinate at- - tachment to the claimant, though resting : on quite different grounds, was scarcely i lesa demented than that of his Wapping ■ admirers. The faith of these people, un- • shaken and unshakable, stands as one more instance in history of that helpless, 3 hopeless credulity which, ' perhaps more than anything else, has barred the path of .Truman, progress and tended to the mournful conehision--.that human nature' never changes. It has been cynically remarked that faith is nothing but a boundless capacity for believing that to be true which is known to be false. Certainly some, such 'definition would seem to be required to account for the blind belief and wilful shutting of one's eyes to facts that distinguished so many of the claimant's f ol- __ , lowers, who, to put it quite plainly, ought to have known better. " • —The Two Trials. — . . ! But there were more general considerations as well which helped to swell the public interest. Apart from these who openly took sides, and fought and strove with each other on the question of identity, there was a large body of indifferent people who did nob care a button whether .the claimant was an impostor or not, but who were vastly entertained -by the_ daily newspaper reports of the trial, by the constant recurrence of episodes more or less sensa1 tional, and last, but , not least, by the striking personality of the leading actors concerned. It will not be forgotten xl that there were two great trials^ — one- civil" and ; the other criminal — before the' fate of the claimant could be said to be finally settled and disposed of. ..The first of these was he-Id in the old Court of Common Pleas, Westminster, before, Lord' Chief Justice Bovill and a special jury. Sergeant jf^allantine, with Mr Giffard, Q.C. (the present Lord Chancellor), were the leading counsel for the claimant. Sir John .Coleridge, with Mr Charles Bowen (afterwards Lord Bowen), represented the Tichborne family. Of these distinguished men Sergeant Ballasting at that time was perhaps the most known to fame, and had the ; greater reputation — if not as a lawyer, I certainty as an advocate. The full day of the others had not ye,t come. , • j — Sergeant Ballantine. — I Ballantine's career was in direct d-efiance of those cherished rules of conduct -nhich are supposed to indicate in letters of gold the only path by which success can be attained at the bar. There are sonic men — perhaps the most deserving — who, slave as they may, never reach the reward of their labours. " There are others whose industry, aided) by happy accident, enables them to succeed* in life, but who make little or no impression on their- fellows, and die unnoticed and unknown. And there are, besides these two classes, a limited few in every active profession who somehow contrive* to fasten on themselves a degree of attention, of favouritism, - which is not alwars in strict proportion to their actual merits. It is the habit to say of these men that they play to the gallery. The 6neer is undeserved. They attract, not because of themselves, but in- spite of themselves. They have a something in ,

their nature — call it what you may, individuality or magnetism — which separates them from other men and lends to all they achieve the sense of a personal charm. It may be truly said of Ballantine that he was " one of this favoured type. No need for him to shun- delights and live laborious days, or patiently trim the midnight lamp. Perhaps it was the very abssnce of these humdrum virtues — the fact that he managed "to arrive" without them — that added 'to his popularity. ! ■ — A Great Cross-examiner. — A man of the world to the tips of his fingers, he threw himself into all that life can give, in work or play, with equal zest. And he seemed, so to speak, to ride both horses with equal ease. A noted cardplayeiyhe Avould sit up all night playing whist, and be ■in his place in court the j following morning fresh as paint, and "as ! keen for his client as if he_ knew no other atmosphere than that of Nisi Prius. As an advocate Ballantine was most formidable in cross-examination. _He had) a curious drawl in his voice, which was suggestive- of hesitation. Possibly, some were deceived into thinking it a sign of indecision, and were tempted on the strength of it to take liberties with him in the witness-box/ If so, they were quickly undeceived. Whether natural or assumed, the drawl was 'effective, and was as characteristic of the man as was Lord Beaconsfield's well-known habit of passing his handkerchief lightly over his mouth be- I fore uttering some poignant sentence or biting epigram. Little affectations of this kind serve their purpose, if they do nothing more than help to rescue a man from the monotonous ranks of the commonplace. — Mr Henry Hawkins. — It is not possible to let the mind ran back to memories of Sergeant BaUantine without associating with them the achievements of his famous contemporary andj rival, Mr Henry Hawkins, Q.C., still, happily, surviving amongst us as Lord Brampton. Both these men were consummate advocates, of the type that are born, not made. It would have been highly interesting had they been opposed to each other in such^a pitched battle as the Tichborne case ; but though one was for and the other against tL-e claimant, as (Fate willed it they were engaged in different trials. Of their advocacy it may be said that its efficacy depended less Ion" the art than the artist — less upon^. method, or cultivation, than upon native shrewdness assisted by a deep knowledge of human nature. The requisites of successful advocacy x are not easily defined — sometimes it is the art which predominates, sometimes the man. There is the advocacy which charms by its polish, by its purity of style; Dy its. graceful eloquence. This is a school" of itself; usually associated with the finest products of Balliol of Trinity ; but it may be doubted whether, with all its persuasive force, it has the sway and potency of the advocacy which, careless of , style, 'aims only at convincing ; the advocacy which, based on a knowledge of human nature, comppls the secret from the unwilling breast by the exercise of a skill so , unerring that it might be described as an instinct rather than an art. It was by cross-examination, more than by e'oquence, that Hawkins and Ballantine achieved most of their victories. It would be invidious to give the palm to either. Perhaps, speaking generally, Ballantine at his ftest stood the higher ; on the other hand, nothing he ever accomplished) approached in -excellence the cross-examina-tion by Hawkins of a witness in the Tichborne trial named Baigent. I think most good judges would regard this, and the cross-examination of Pisott in the Parnell Commission by Sir Charles Russell, as the best work of its. kind that has been seen^ at the bar in modern times. Each in its way was a masterpiece. — A Difficult Witness. — Baigent was by no means an easy witness to tackle, more difficult, I should say, by far than Pigott. Beginning life, if I recollect aright, by giving lessons in drawing, he obtained an introduction into he Tichborne family, and so ingratiated himself that he was allowed to take up his residence at the Hall, with the duties of librarian. In this position he naturally acquired a wide knowledge of many facts in the family history, which, for reasons of his own, he treacherously placed at the service of the claimant. Perhaps there was no one who contributed moie effectively to the huge fabric of lies on which the plaintiff's claim rested than this thoroughly unscrupulous witness. Of all the conspirators who assisted to keep the imposture on its legs he was at once ihe best informed and the most crafty. He, was in the witness-box, I think, 14 days, and from a forensic point of view nothing could be more thrilling than the duel a outrance between him and his relentless antagonist. It was not an easy victory by any means. If tli-e Questions wore subtle,

so were the answers ; every artifice that ingenuity could suggest "was employed by the Aritness to avoid close quarters with his tormentor. He wriggled and) shuffled and fenced, but all to no purpose. Presced closer and closer, he was fain at last to take refuge in the weaknesses of the flesh. He was a Catholic, and it was Lent. "Mr Hawkins! Mr Hawkins!" he cried in accents of despair. ''Remember it is- Friday and I am faint." An-d thus for the time, and thus only, Aras he able to obtain the respite he &o sorely needed. — A Question of Thrift. — I have touched on the points in common which distinguished the advocacy of Hawkins and Ballantine. The resemblance might be earned farther, inasmuch as both were men of the world, Arith a keen tasie for some of its pleasures. If Ballantine loved cards, Hawkins was not less tond of the turf, but there the resemblance ceased. Rumour was busy with the follies and extravagances of the sergeant. If it whispered anything against Hawkins it was only a note of envy tor a prosperity which nothing seemed to touch. Perhaps it; Aras some feeling of this kind, a consciousness of the sharp contrast in their characters, that made Ballantine say to HaAvkins one day — at least, so the story runs — Avith his accustomed drawl : "What is the good, my dear fellow, of such scrupulous economy? You can't cany your money out of this Avorld ; and even if you could it would be no use to you, for it ATould' certainly melt." One more memory of these famous advocates recurs to me. In 1875 the trial took place in India of the. Gaekwar of Baroda on a charge of poisoning, or being concerned in the poisoning of, the British Res-dent. Hawkins was offered the. brief for the defenca, Arith a fee of £20,0C0 ; but, dazzling as this sum was, and brilliant as was the opportunity for adding fresh laurels to his fame, the brief was declined, and was ultimately accepted by Sergeant Ballantine. The fee was understood' to have been reduced by one-half ; but even at that figure (£10,000) it established something like a record, and was spoken of AFith bated breath m the circles of the Temple and Lincoln's Inn. — Hoav the Great Trial Began. — It was not until the seventieth day that Sergeant Ballantine concluded the claimant's case in the trial before Lord Chief Justice Bovill. It was a carefully constructed fabric of ingenious falsehood elusive against the claimant; the jury but it did not take long to expose its fallacies and topple it over like a house of cards. After a speech of unparalleled length by Sir John Coleridge, in Avhich the conspiracy was traced to its roots, evidence was given Avhich Aras absolutely conflusive against 119 claimant ; the jury stopped the case, and Sergeant Ballantine, after taking an adjournment to consider Avhat course he would adopt, elected to be non-suited. One would have thought after such a denouement as this that nothing more would be heard of the claimant's pretensions ; but though scotched, the impostor was not yet killed. Arrested on a charge of perjury, it became necessary to try the issue of his identity over again, with this difference — that whereas at the trial just concluded it lay on the claimant to "show he was Tiehborne, the onus was now shifted) to the Crown to show he was not, and this they undertook to do in the most convincing manner possible by establishing his real identity with, that of a butcher at Wapping of the name of Arthur Orton. There is alAvays something about a criminal trial which fascinates the mostcasual spectator. Great issues are tried from time to time in the -civil courts, issues which may determine the direction of a colossal fortune, or blast for ever some great social reputation ; but it is only , when Human life or liberty is at stake that the deepest feelings o.f mankind are aroused — the atmosphere becomes different. There is a feeling during a criminal trial as of a sword suspended in the air which must fall, and may wound, or even kill. The sense of this penetrates into every corner of the court, and affects eA-erybody present, from the prisoner in the dock to the least interested spectator. Whenever the liberty of an Englishman is at stake, no matter how comparatively venial may be the offence, a jealous instinct is aroused that the SAvord must not be allowed to fall and injure him unless his guilt is made clear as noonday. Better a thousand times that a guilty man should escape rather than a hair of the head of an innocent person should suffer. It is this fine instinct in the English character — this fellow feeling with a man on his trial — which more than anything- else has steadied the administration of the criminal law, and brought it into harmony with the conscience of the people. — The Rise of the Curtain. — Certainly Avhen the trial opened there were not Avanting signs of the public inteiest that Aras excited ; nor was anything spared by the authorities to give dignity and importance to the occasion. It may be questioned, indeed, at this distance of time whether the ends ■of justice might not haA r e been equally served with a little less pomp and circumstance. A \-ulgar and impudent imposture had been exposed and shattered — shattered so effectively as to leave no possible room for 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 Avork of a few days at tlie Oldi Bailey. And, if so, what Aras there in the prisoner, except his audacity, thafc 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 Aras something j in the background after all, some mystery 1 still to be cleared up ; and, after all, what did it matter Avhether he Avas Arthur Arton or not? And why should the CroArn put itself to the trouble and expense of proving such an issue? Why not be content v. ith showing once more, sAviftly and decisively, that, whoever else he might be,

he was not Sir Roger Tiehborne? It T must be presumed that these considerations were not orerlooked ; but they were not allowed to prevail. The Attorneygsneral claimed to have a trial at bar — that is to say, a trial before three judges— -^ a form of pioceeding 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 February, 1874. It ended, as everybody knows, in the conviction of the claimant as Arthur Orton, and in his being sentenced to 14 years" penal servitude. The three judges who composed the tribunal were Sir Alexander Cockbum (Chief Justice eft ' England) and Justices M-ellor and Lush— a judicial trio in every way worthy of the best traditions of the English bench. Nor w-ere the counsel who appeareu for the Crown less distinguished. Mr Hawkins, Q.C., assisted fey Sergeant Parry, and such eminent juniors as Charles "Bowen and J." C. Malhew, conducted the prosecution. For th-e claimant appeared the notorious- Br Kenealy and Mr Macmahon, both of them 1 members of tho 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 Tiehborne case. It was common ground at the tiial that Sir Roger Tiehborne was shipwrecked on a voj^age in the Bella from Rio to New York in 1854. It ' was the claimant's case that though ship-wrecked Sir Roger (i.e., himself) was not drowned ; that he was picked up by a vessel 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 in--I teresting 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 as first ships sailing for MelbouJSe^ from 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 Os-prey which the claimant said hadi rescued him. Before, however, he committed himself to that vessel he called with Baigent on the owner of the Themis, and related lo him the story of his rescue. After hearing him without interruption the owner said, "It is very strange that my captain never reported the rescue to me, and, unfortunately, he is not now living. "My brother-in-law, Mr M., was in 1854 my agent at Melbourne. He is now with ma here, and w-e will hear what he says." M. was accordingly sent for, and to him the claimant repeated in detail how he had been rescued, and the kind of 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 vessel, who was expected in Liverpool in a few weeks. This was enough for the claimant &o far as the Themis was concerned. It was necessary to fix on some other vessel advertised to sail about the same time, and no doubt this was how the Osprey came to be selected. In the meantime the mate of the Themis duty arrived at Liverpool, and being shown a photograph of the claimant, which he had left at the office, was asked if he recognised him. "Of course I do, 1 ' was the reply. ''He sailed in the-- Themis from Liverpool, steerage, and was entered on the passenger list as Jenkins, of Bridport ; he had not a stitch of ba_ggage — just the clothes on his back — and when we got in cold weather [ he had to be supplied with clothing. On 1 landing he went to Mr M."s office, gave a draft on England for about £14. which, on presentation, was never met." j, ■," — 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 evktisnse was not made use of at the trial is- somewhat remarkable, for not only does jt, show why the claimant was drjven-to Hit oix the Osprey, but it establishes tno fvfc-z ther fact that at a date not given he halt 5 sailed as J-enkins, of Bridport,- in the Themis for Melbourne ; one^ op- the two vessels which were advertised ''as sailinw for Melbourne at a. date^-^li^ch , would have made it, possible to bVin 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 would doubtless have selected the Themis as the ship that rcscnedi him, and would have been nbTo tr> use hi<* knowledge of the equipment of that vessel with damaging offect. There is. of course 1 , no reason for doubting that Jenkins, of Bridport, and Aithiu* Orton were one and the same : but it would lu>ve added to thp completeness of this new information to know wliv Arthur O'*ton went to Australia-. anc 1 ! why he should hare sailed under the name of Jenkins. '

T — What the Oiumnt D;d:i'l. Knovr. — But this is rot the only Ijl'.i. f j.ivt received containing new matlei". Ai.c-i.livi correspondent adds from hih o •. v expencne£ to the long list of incidents, tuning in t-hemselves, which told in the end '.v it'll suuh cumulative force against the; claimant. "I 'vras travelling in a rail-way carriagfi when I heard two soldieis discussing tlu Tichborne case. Joining in the conveisation, I said, 'I am not well up in military matters, but what satisfies me that the claimant is a, pretender is his Stony hurst evidence.' 'So am I,' said m elderly nui". hi"' the carriage, who had hitherto kept silent ; 'I was a servant a"t Stonyhurs* when Mr Tichborne was thsre, 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 lie 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, ar.d I am ashamed to say I helped him in it. We used to get as many cats as we could, and he worried them with dogs in a certain meadow.' " — The Claimant- and Lady Tichborne. — The cost of the two Tiehbome trial; as rntrv be easily imagined, nas colossal* It was estimated at something l'ka £200,U00, one-half of which tell un the unfortunate Tichborne estates. How eternally true the Fiench saying, if you want to nr,d a .cause for any trouble, "Gherchez la feftmie.'* The real' source of the partial success that' .attended the claimant was to be found, not m himself, but in the mother of the man he en- ' disavoured to personate. The claimant himself i was to a-Jarge extent the victim of circumstances, hurried, en by little strokes of unexpected good fortune, and by the zeal— anything but' disinterested — of his supporters. But al] the" help he received from one .quarter 6i\ another would have availed him nothing .,'piit -for vhe stimulus given to his imposture by Lady Tichborne. Standing absolutely alone hi her belief that her son had not beoi. drowned, she advertised for some news of him in the newspapers ; 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 far from the claimant "answering to the description," there was not a , point or a feature in which one man can 'differ from another in which the claimano 7-did^ not differ fcom the slim youth who drowned in the Bella. But the mother's mind was made up. Whether she suffered from pure monomania, or whether motives were at 'work into which one need not inquire, she "recognised" her son, and thus gave an enormous impetus to tr's pretensions. "■ " — Their- Meeting. — The interview between the two was one I of the most dramatic features in the history of the case. The claimant, not without some misgivings of the impression u& might make, feignedi sickness, and arranged for the first meeting to take place as ii 3 lay in bed in a darkened room, with only his face visible above the bedclothes. The face ought to have been enough, but vhe old lady was not in a mood to be convinced against her will by such a trine. She 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 sunV cienb in the way of good fortune, she handed over to the claimant a inmiber of letters and diaries -written, by her soa, 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 ha.ye been an end of the business. By acknowledging him she not only tin imnien&e in> petus to the fraud, "'but made herself -hg guilty cause of much of the ruinous expense that liad to be charged to the Tic'iiborne estate.. — The Summing-up. — It was a thrilling moment at the trial when Sir Alexander Cockburn commenced his summing up. Perhaps the thrill slightly abated before the closa, for there never could be much doubt of the verdict, and a charge to the jury which wrin.-pied 180 eoiumns of The Times newspaper required a good deal of digesting. Nevertheless, the charge in itself was a -masterpiece of lucid and faultless arrangement. Sir Alexander, rightly or wrongly, was reputed to enjoy in a special degree presiding over causes celebres ; and to 'jonie of us who watched he fairly, seemed to revel in the developments of the trial. I have -never seen an intellect so visibly on the Sstretch. You could almost see his mind working as he followed with unceasing rY.igilan.ee every twist and turn of the evi"deiice. Nothing was allowed to escape his -attention ; and when his turn came to sum, -up, the skill with which he marshalled ,the facts was made the more impressive by the earnest eloquence with which he .vdrove their full significance into th-a minds ,*of the jury. From first- to last it was a great effort, and worthy of the highest traditions of the judicial bench. — The Judges. — • In appearance Sir Alexander was below the normal height, but on the bench this was not apparent. What was observable to everybody was the dignity of his deportment and his charm of voice and manner. There were moments — too many of them — when he had to listen to provocations from Dr Kenealy of the most tryinr nature, when that curiously-misguided son seemed to take a positive delight in transgressing every rule of decorum and in flinging insults at the bench. With a weaker chief, or one less careful of the traditions of his court, these scenes might easily have degenerated into wrangles which would have lowered in the public esteem the administration of iustiee. Ther*

jras no fear of this with Sir Alexander. . Although visibly moved on more than one accasion, he "never allowed himself- to lose his self-control, and his rebukes were de- j - livered with a dignity and fitness of ex- 1 pression which, if they were.". lost on the - individual to whom they were addressed, were recognised as just- and appropriate , by the great profession to which thej both 1 belonged. The colleagues of Sir Alexander , were, as I. have mentioned, Justices Mel"lor- and Lush. These two judges were in - strong contrast to each other : Mellor," perhaps a little ponderous, but saga- - cious and fair: Lush, not less fair, very accurate, and sharp as a needle. A good story in connection with the latter is. claimed by, the bar mess of more than one circuit. The mess, whichever it was, was entertaining, according to custom, the .judges of -Assize,- whf chanced' to be, '; Judges Lush and Shee. As the toast lisfci . was being solemnly got through, a barris- : ter, desirous of adding to the conviviality 7r of the evening, rose with ' glass in hand and -proposed a toast to r 'wine and women." Being promptly rebuked, by • the leader for such a breach of -decorum.-'tihe unabashed proposer replied, "Very well, I will change the^ terms of my toast. "Let us drink to the" health of Lush and Shee." —The Counsel.— ! If the judges who presided at the trial -■were worthy of the' occasion, not less so were the eminent counsel who had in their charge the conduct of the case for the Crown. So far as the public~~were eon- J <-erned, jt was the control and guidance j .of the case by Mr Hawkins, his skill andi j his eloquence, which most in evidence. They, knew little of the immense work . and7labour, done mostly -behind the scenes, which was thrown upon the junior counsel, notably Charles Bowen and J. C. Mathew, .-a pair whose names- were often associated as destined sooner or -later to attain high judicial rank. On Bowen, in particular, may be said to have fallen the burden and strain of the Tdchborne case as > upon -no other man. He was counsel in both —trials, and it was to his genius and inspiration that much of the success of Sir John Coleridge's famous address to the jury was due. There never was any secret ' about this, for "ao on was more ready to acknowledge it, in season and out of season, than Sir John Coleridge himself. Bowen was one of those men whose cgreatjaess may be said to have begun in school, and to have accompanied him through life. Few men have - left behind them a- more enviable record of literary • and judicial I excellence, combined as it was with a rar© ; modesty and sweetness of nature ; and yet •with all his intellectual superiority and culture -there was a moment in his fortunes when his friends are said to have trembledi for the~high hopes that had been formed of his future. It is of the essence

of a barrister's life that, no matter what !his abilities may be^he cannot make a start in his profession without the friendly aid of a solicitor. There is no loophole of escape- from this inflexible obligation. To the popular, successful advocate, who has got over this early difficulty and made his - footing sure, solicitors will flock as patients flock to a - fashionable physician ; but it is different at the beginning of ; things. — Bowen's Burglar. — v lt is for the solicitor then to pick and j choose, and he is not always guided in his ' choice by an extravagant admiration for the youth who has attained high university distinction. A double first or a senior wrangler is all very well, but neither is absolutely bound to succeed in the defence or prosecution of a prisoner. The ' -fear with regard to Bowen was that he might fail to make the most of these early ■ necessary chances. There was the danger that he might be too clever for the rough-and-tumble work of Quarter Sessions, that -his delicate wit and fastidious taste anight prove" too much for the country attorney, .and be a stumbling-block rather than a _"gain to himself. A solicitor is not to be _ blamed if he puts success before everything, and if the following delightful story of Bowen is true, he may be pardoned "lor thinking that if verdicts are to be imperilled by graceful sarcasm, the less of luch sarcasm the better. "If you consider, gentlemen," Bowen is reported to have ] Baid in. prosecuting a burzlar who was !

j caught on the roof of a house with the | implements of his trade in his hand, "that j the accused was on the roof of the house J for the purpose of enjoying the midnight breeze, and! by pure accident happened to have about him the necessary tools of a housebreaker, with no distinct intention of employing them, you will, of course, acquit him." A recommendation which , the jury promptly proceeded to carry out by a verdict of 'acquittal. — A Great Object-lesson. — Here for the present I must end Hiy memories of the Tichborne case. Looking iback ,on it as a whole, it is impossible tq'-iivoicP the sad ' reflection that no advance in human 'knowledge seems to afford any guarantee against an outburst of crej dulity which for the time being nothing can j checjk .or impede. The world may be J likened, to a great theatre, the stag© t>f I whicfi'is given up to any imposter who j has the courage to stalk across it and claim it as his own. The only wonder that the claimants should have been so few and far between. It ought not to require superhuman audacity to frame a lie, the success of which is more likely to be assured -the further it departs from the truth. If the claimant in the Tichborne case failed in "the end, as he was- bound to do, he would not have gone so near success as he did had his pretensions been 'more modest or his lies less thorough. The instinctive • love of the marvellous which is planted so deep in human nature is hard to dislodge. There seems no hope of its final eradication except through the gradual enlightenment which may be hoped from the widiar spread-r>f education. If the Tichborne v case in the meantime, as a great object-lesson in human credulity, has hastened this advent by a single step, it will ' not have been without some service., to humanity.