no 



THE POPULAR S.CIEXCE MONTHLY. 



the same time assured that the most compe- 

 tent witnesses had begun with incredulity 

 and ended in full belief. There was a manu- 

 factory of affidavits ready to be submitted for 

 the signature of all who had made even a 

 partial surrender of their judgment. The 

 man himself, it was always admitted, was 

 indeed a prodigious development, so the 

 comparison was always led away from the 

 person to some minute or out-of-the-way 

 circumstances, which it was said ' none but 

 KogerTichbornecouldpossibly have known.' 

 Few considered how completely the de- 

 fenses had been opened to the claimant, and 

 that he had the run of the Tichborne annals, 

 archives, gossip, and every thing. Every 

 day he had opportunities of acquiiing a ht- 

 tle more of the social gloss which befitted 

 his assumed rank ; every day his stock of 

 information was added to ; every fresh wit- 

 ness contributed some items ; every day of 

 both trials supplied new materials ; every 

 time a question was repeated, the claimant 

 could answer it better than before, being 

 better informed and better advised. Then 

 he could always plead the tricks of memory, 

 and was neither ashamed to have things 

 brought to his remembrance nor to have for- 

 gotten what he had said the day before." 



Of the stupendous trial whicli fol- 

 lowed, the "wliole world is aware. Six 

 years ago the claimant applied to the 

 Court of Chancery as a first step to 

 legal proceedings, and three years since 

 he commenced a trial of ejectment in 

 the court of Common Pleas, which 

 lasted six months. Nine months ago he 

 was himself put upon his trial for per- 

 juries committed in the former case, 

 and after 188 days' adjudication he 

 was convicted by the jury in half an 

 hour, as a perjured impostor. The 

 solicitor - general occupied thirty-one 

 days in opening the case, the coun- 

 sel for defense consumed forty-seven 

 days in summing up, and the chief-jus- 

 tice took eighteen days to deliver his 

 charge, which would have filled 180 

 columns of the London Times. Half a 

 million dollars were contributed by the 

 English people, in the shape of bonds, 

 to enable the claimant to prosecute the 

 case, and, according to the Spectator^ 

 it cost to all parties — the crown, the 

 Tichborne family, and the defendant's 



supporters — more than a million and a 

 quarter of dollars ! 



Such are the leading features of the 

 most extraordinary and the most cele- 

 brated lawsuit in all history, which 

 has just come to an end. The question 

 now arises how it became possible to 

 get up so tremendous a struggle over 

 so simple an issue. It might perplex 

 us, far away as we are, to find a satis- 

 factory answer, but the whole British 

 press comes to our relief with a una- 

 nimity and an emphasis that are quite 

 remarkable. They agree that the cause 

 of so monstrous and overgrown a pro- 

 cedure is not to be ascribed to the de- 

 fects of English law-practice, but to the 

 gross ignorance, the silly love of the 

 marvelous, the stupid credulity, and the 

 wide-mouthed gullibility of the English 

 people, who backed up the case and 

 furnished the means for fighting it. The 

 Spectator says : " The credulity which 

 has been disclosed throughout the case 

 is positively frightful. . . . Evidence 

 of the most unanswerable character 

 left the believers absolutely unmoved." 

 And of the judge's charge it says : 

 " Nothing but that slow-dripping, lumi- 

 nous narrative, with all its lengthy let- 

 ters, and all its moral reflections, and all 

 its apt quotations to justify its actions, 

 would ever have fairly driven its illu- 

 sions out of the British public." The 

 Saturday Review says : 



" Bishop Butler is reported to have once 

 turned upon his secretary with the alarming 

 inquiry, 'Why might not large bodies of 

 men, and whole communities, be seized with 

 fits of insanity as well as individuals ? ' The 

 startled secretary could only suggest reliance 

 upon Providence to avert such a calamity. 

 It would certainly appear, however, that 

 there are epidemics, if not of insanity, at 

 least of infectious folly and unreasonable- 

 ness, which come to pretty much the same 

 thing. It is scarcely possible to account in 

 any other way for such a deplorable exhibi- 

 tion of human siUiuess as has been afi'orded 

 in connection with the Tichborne case. The 

 really amazing thing about this imposture, 

 as we look back on it, is, that it should ever 

 have imposed on anybody. ... An elastic 

 credulity, however, can swallow any thing, 



