Rensselaer Union, Volume 3, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 July 1871 — The Tichborne Case. [ARTICLE]

The Tichborne Case.

One of the most romantic trials on record is now in progress in one of the London courts, involving the title and estates of an ancient baronetcy, with a rent-roll equal to $150,000 a year in gold. The case is briefly this: In 1853 Roger Charles Tichborne, son of Sir James Francis Tichborne, left England for Valparaiso. Up to April, 1854, letters came from him to his mother, who learned from them that he was engaged in traveling in various parts of South America. lie also sent home birds, some pictures, and some peculiar spurs and stirrups. In the course of 1854 intelligence was received at Tichborne that Roger had taken passage at Rio de Janeiro in April, on the shin Bella, bound for New York, that she had foundered at sea, and that the owners and underwriters treated her as having been lost. No tidings came of the crew, except that one boat belonging to the Bella had been met with on the ocean with no one on board, and it was taken for granted that the whole crew were drowned. This seems to have been accepted as conclusive by all but Lady Ticliborne, who clung to the belief that her son was saved, and had a presentiment that she would one day see him again. Some time in 1858 a common sailor presented himselfatTichbotne Park with the story that he had just arrived from Australia. Ho asked for aims, and had a conversation with Lady Tichborne, in which he declared that he had heard that a boat’s crew from a ship, which he thought was the Bella, had been picked tip at sea and brought into Melbourne. Sir James Tichborne, the father, did not think the report worth notice. The mother, however, finding in it a corroboration of her cherished hope.?, clung to it as gospel. She caused advertisements to be inserted in the Australian papers, and took various other measures to discover her lost son. All were unavailing, it appears, until after the death of Sir James. But in the month of March, 18116, she at last received a letter from Sir Roger, written from New South Wales, expressing the wish to come home directly, and asking that money should be sent to enable him to do so This was done, and he arrived in Paris, to meet his mother, accompanied by a wife and child, in January, 1867. He being unwell, Lady Tichborne went to see him at a hotel in the Rue St. Honore. She “instantly recognized him ” as her first-born son, Roger Charles Tichborne. . Iler conviction on this point is strongly expressed in an affidavit to which she has sworn, one paragraph of which reads as follows : “ I am certain as I am of my own existence, and distinctly and positively swear, that the plaintiff Is my first-born son, the Issue of my marriage with thesaid Sir James Francis Doughty Tichborne (deceased). His features, disposition and voice are uumlstakabld', and must, in my Judgment, lie recognized by impartial and unprejudiced persons who Knew him before he left England in the year IsM.” The mother’s belief was further strengthened by constant talks with the claimant over numerous private family matters that occurred during her son’s youth, by his reminding her of the articles he had sent het from South America, etc. All this evidence, she says in her affidavit, is to her mind most conclusive, and declares it is impossible she can be mistaken in his identity. The evidence of other persons is equally positive in his favor. George Allen, fornteily butler in the Tichborne family, swears that he.has no doubt, of the claimant's identity with the veritable Sir Roger. Thomas Carter, the body-servant of Sir Roger in 1852, is no less positive. He has “no more doubt that the claimant is the Roger Tichborne of 1852, than he has that he Carter, is himself.” Other people in or connected with the regiment to which Sir Roger belonged, likewise recollect and identify him. On the other hand, the evidence against the claimant is equally strong and positive. Several witnesses —one of them a wellknown clergyman —who knew Sir Roger before his disappearance swear that they do not believe the claimant to be Sir Roger. The real baronet was educated in France, and spoke French with fluency. The claimant is quitefignorantof that language, which he professes to have forgotten in course of his long knocking about the world. It also appears that the Sir Roger who sailed for Valparaiso was short and slight, while the claimant is rather tall and stout. As he was twenty-four years of age at the time of his departure, it is plausibly urged that he can scarcely have altered materially in statue since that time. The contestants further declare that the whole affair is a conspiracy, of which a man named Bogle—for many y ears in the service of Hip Tichborne family—is the prime mover, and that he it is who selected his man in Austrslia-for this personation, supplied him with information, and taught him to play his delicate and critical part. The examination of-the claimant by the Solicitor-General has been searching and severe, and nothing in fiction eould rival one scene in which the claimant was interrogated respecting the contents of a sealed packet which Sir Roger, at the time of his departure, left in the hands of his business agent, to be acted on only on the happening of certain events. The claimant was vtfty reluctant to answer, and did so only on the positive order of the court. His answer involved the reputation of a married lady, then present in the courtroom’; the cousin of Sir Roger, and is indignantly denied by the other side. The papers in question were destroyed in 1854. The heir whom the present claimant will dispossess, in case his pretensions are made good, is a lad named Henry A. J. Tichborne, grandson of Sir‘ James, and son of Alfred Tichborne, also deceased. The trial promises to lie one of extraordinary length as well as excitement and interest.— Weekly. • _s~_ - '/ It is very haA on Chicago—the report that it is proposed to abffiish the lighthouse at the mouth of the Chicago River as an Unnecessary expense, “ the sense of smell of the pilots -being all that is. requisite to enable them to make the harbor.”