The Tichbourne trial : the summing-up by the Lord Chief Justice of England, together with the addresses to the judges, the verdict, and the sentence; the whole accompanied by a history of the case and copious alphabetic index / [By the lord chief justice of England.].

Cockburn, Alexander James Edmund, Sir, 1802-1880.

Date:: 1874

Credit: The Tichbourne trial : the summing-up by the Lord Chief Justice of England, together with the addresses to the judges, the verdict, and the sentence; the whole accompanied by a history of the case and copious alphabetic index / [By the lord chief justice of England.]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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$known, in tlieir all deposing that they only knew him as Arthnr Orton j and his old employer’s widow in Australia not only said the same, hut produced evidence of the fact in the shape of ledgers of her late husband. There is no need to go through the marvellously complete chain of circumstances which renders it inconceivable that the defendant can he anybody hut the butcher’s son. Those who imagine that his conviction on all the counts of the indictment has resulted from the jury putting more faith in the ‘Yea’ of one set of witnesses than in the ‘ ISTay’ of an- other set have certainly not gone very deep into the evidence. It was, in fact, the marvellous completeness of the circumstances, including records and other documentary evidence, all independently leading to the same conclusion, which constituted the strength of the prosecution, and placed the guilt of the defendant, both in affirming himself on oath to he Tich- horne and denying that he is Orton, beyond all reasonable doubt. It was not until the 30th of July 1867, and two following days, that the whole family circles of Tiehhorne and Seymour, and a number of Carabineer officers who had been most intimate with Eoger, had a full opportunity of seeing him. Tor those entire three days the Claimant was under examination. The great hall of the Law Institution, in which these proceedings took place, was crowded by aunts and uncles and cousins of Roger, who had known him well; hut there was no recogni- tion between them and the man who claimed to he their relative; and with one accord they pronounced him an impostor. The only exceptions were Mr. Eiddulph and Mr. (afterwards Sir) Frederick Constable, who were only remote connections; and both these gentlemen have stated that they did not personally recognise him, hut came to the conclusion that he must he the same person from his being able to remind them of certain facts in connection with Mr. Tichhorne’s past life. TTeither Mr. Eiddulph nor ]\Ir. Constable was of course aware that when in Aus- tralia the Claimant had shown himself entirely ignorant of Roger Tich- horne’s history and connections, as proved, not by somebody’s memory, but by written records; nor did they know that he had now access to correspondence, and probably to diaries of Roger, which haf been reli- giously preserved by the dowager. They were not aware that he had taken into his house the old servant of Mr. Tiehhorne, and had engaged several other persons who could give him information; nor did they probably suspect that there were at that time at least half-a-dozen persons busily engaged in procuring for his use documentary information. It is easy to see that in this way a considerable amount of knowledge might be acquired by an impostor. Eut what these persons did not perceive was, that in a case of disputed identity it is not by a man’s knowledge of what he might have learnt, but by his ignorance of what he must have known if he were the true man, that he is to be judged. For example, what number of anecdotes about life in the regiment could weigh against the admitted fact that the Claimant’s mind on the subject of his life in Paris was a mere blank? Roger Tichborne, as was well known, was born and reared in Paris, re- sided there till his seventeenth year, frequently revisited the city, main- tained old friendships of childhood, and parted there with many dear friends and acquaintances after a visit of three weeks immediately before embarking for South America—he being then in his twenty-fourth year. Let him be able to tell ten thousand tales of practical jokes played off upon Cornet Tichborne in Dublin, Cahir, Clonmel, and Waterford—still$