THE TICHBORNE CASE.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 7166, 27 December 1894, Page 3

THE TICHBORNE CASE.

» JEAN LOUIE'S STATEMENT. Sydney, Dec. 26. — Jean Lonie, who figured so prominently in the Tichborne case, is now residing in Sydney. He states that the Osprey, in which Tichborne reached Sydney, is identical with the Bella. He, the captain, and one or two others plotted to steal the vessei, and altered her to a barque, and instead of going to New York j went to Australia. In the meantime Capt. Oates, while ashore, persuaded Sir Roger to leave Rio, where he had been about a week, drinking heavily, and go to England in the Bella. The ship's chandler, named Brown, and Oates took Tichborne aboard in the afternoon, but as the vessel had entered out it was necessary, in order to avoid alteration in the papers, to stow him awiy from the vision of the scrntineering officers. In the i morning the Bella's long boat, which was I afterwards found at sea, was cut adrift Tasmania was sighted, but the Osprey was taken to New Zealand, and anchored in a bight just outside Auckland harbor, where she stayed two days. Here some cargo was liken ashore in boats and sold, and a few finishing touches to the painting of the vessel were given by a man named Monkhouse. The latter, who still resides in Auckland, will, he says, swear that he did this worK to the barque. At this time the bulk of the hands deserted, as the Melbourne gold fever had just set in. Louie adds that that was the last time he saw lichborne. He has seen Cresswell, and states that he is certain he is Tichborne. The reopening of the Tichborne case is bringing forth a shoal of correspondence in the columns of the Daily Telegraph respecting the case. One writer suggests that the real Sir Roger may have been murdered at Wagga some time before 1866, and states that Drover in 1864 fell in with a young man who called himself Roger Leslie, but none of the fly leaves of his diary was written R. D. Tichborne. The man spoke well, and informed him of the ways of South America He had a pipe with the initials " R.D.T. " on it, and said be was going to Wagga because a friend of his named Arthur Orton, but calling himself DeCastro, was butchering there. Leslie alleged that he knew DeCastro jo England, and travelled with him in South America. The writer adds that Drover met the pair at Wagga, when Leslie addressed Orton as Arthur, while the latter called Leslie " Sir Arthur." Leslie disappeared after being threatened by a man from whom he woo money at gambling, and an unidentified headless body was later on found in the Murumbidgee river. Shortly afterwards the man with whom he had quarrelled was executed for shooting a blacksmith. Mr Priestman, a solicitor who was formerly a neighbor of the late Sir Alfred Tichborne, is working up the case, and is thoroughly conversant with the celebrated trial, being in London at the time, and he is convinced the riddle is solved, and that Cresswell supplied Orton with the details on which he based his claim. Another correspondent, who was in the Carbineers with Tichborne, declares that Cresswell is not the heir.