The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1877-05-15 00:00:00

GREAT FIRE IN GLASGOW.

The shipbuilding yard of Masers. Wingate and Co.
Partiek, Glaegow, was partially burned down 4,
Sunday morning. The damage, which for the most
1,..t we. among the machinery and engines which the
firm were constructing for the Dutch Government, Is
estimated at between 70.000 and £llO,OOO, an 1 is
covered by insurance In five different offices,

LOVE AND JEALOUSY ; MURDER AND
SUICIDE.
A shocking occurrence took place on Thum,ley night in
Higlibury New Pork, nen Balfour•rowl. Abut a quarter
to oleo o'clock the maino of two piatol.shots wioo ad;
awl immediately afterwards two young nom were found
lying in the road each not through the head. One was
dead, and the other died while In wax being taken to the
Herman ihapital. The body of the former has hum Maw
titled ea thin of Mr. W. Clements, of 31, Al.erileen Pork•
road, ilighltury, sin of Mr. Clements, stationer, W.A.
strut, Chasuble, and the latter wu found to he Mr.
Horace A. Bullock, of 37. SoutWhill Park, Hemlines& A
revolver cue win found in hi+ pocket. The police are
said to have entertained that Clcinenta was engaged to be
monied to a young womon to whom Bullock was formerly
engaged,
and
committed .7,7 V '';,"„` Bonue"oesakw Vatsl(MineTrnet
hut one person ix stated to have hoard the voices of two
1 persons who appeared to he quarreling.

THE CLAIMANT.
Last week we publiahed is letter which Mr.
Chamberlain, one of the member* for Birmingham had
written to a constituent, relative to is re-trial of the
Claimant. Mr. Guildford Onslow ham replied to the
letter, and thie is the *newer
The Grove. /ionise. May 7th. WT.—Me—Having read a
letter of yours in the public newspapers addreamil to Mr.
Charles Wilkins. the Seeretary of the Tiehborne Mame
Association in /Immingham, one of those nnmeroite
societies eatablished in almost every town In the Kingdom,
I venture to offer a few remarks thereon, m the Tlchborne
MIMI bee now become one of national interest ; and having
attended over MO public meetings, including five crowded
ones In your own Borough of Ilimiingharn, I feel that in
addressing a representative of the people there is no
occasion for apology. I fully admit your Perfect right to
form your own opinion on the ease, and that it Is your
honed conviction that the Clalment is an Impeder. No
doubt yon. ill give me also credit for honestly holding
View,. The great difference hetween iis appears
1,, be, thut while i mi never knew Heger Tiehborne or his
Mother in ;our life. I happened tote, intimate with both.
You judge byte ?may, Iby sight At first hi, nige brothel
me; lett when I saw hini a'. Dartmoor all ihmio wee
nue I nen in a p ition to swear to the identity
of the Clalnient aa vouched for by the words, deeds and
repeated oaths of his own Mother to her latest breath.
Now, if this man is an Impostor, Lady Tiebborne died
with a lie on her lips, there being no likeness whatever
between Roger Tichborne, the Claimant. and Arthur
Orton, according to the evidence of the Proirecution, on
which you rely. You state you are at loan to understand
"the eympathy which he haa excited." Well. lam glad
that you admit there is sympathy, as shown by the
thousand public meetings that have been held, by the
Hemmed. of pounds subscribed, by the hundreds of
thouaanda of signatures to Parliamentary Petition, to.
gether with the fart of the presence of millions of rue,
fellommutrymen and women at the Monster Demonstra-
tion that cast into the shade the triumphal entry of
fleribeldi into London—still fresh in the reeollection of us
*IL I once asked your colleague, my friend Mr. John
Bright, a question. I will ask you. Did you ever
know the British Public wrong? Were they wrong in
their ViOWR Fl,l4reeLlng the trial of George the Fourth's
Queen, Sir Francis Burdett; or Lord Cochrane! or
Reform? the abolition of the Ditty on Corn! the Civil War
in America I the Premien War? the demands for the
increase of the Franehim and the Ballot / and, Wain on
the present Foritem lestion Why, then, should they
be all wrong on the '1 ichhorne cane I You say you have
studied the case from the reports in the papers. Have you
seen the affidavits ' have you read the depositions I the
private correspondence and letters of the witnesses who
aware to the Identity of the I litimant in both trial,! and
the fresh and concholveevidenee from Australia einem the
verdict Hunt* you contemplated John Moore's evidence,
which I beg to endoee ; and ?lid port know penemelly aueh
men no Mr. Edward Hopkina, my family solicitor, Sir
George Offfard, Sir John Bolt, the Attorney-General, Mr.
Justice Selwyn, Mr. Scott, of Rotherffeld Park, Mr.
Karrolake, Willimn Ferguson, Dr. Lipammive, Dr.
Massey Wheeler, Mr. Ihildulph, Mr. Long. Mr. Marx,
General Crud mre, Colonels Sheraton, Sawyer, Norbury,
Pinckney, Heywood, Mir Talbot Constable, the belie. and
gentlemen in my own immediate neighbourhood, Ms
neighbor, Mood of Tichte rye, the old tenants, eervants
tutors. Mende clergymen of the Churches of England and
Rome, with fourteen Justicen of the Peace, ell of whom
either more to his identity or believed him to he Roger
Tiehhorne aim sure as they were of their very existence. If
you Indy judge from the flimsy prejuilimM report of the
trials in the newspapers, you really know nothing, tom.
paritively speaking, of the case, and I should have an easy
victory over you In your own piddle hall at Birmingham,
where I an, willing to meet you and leave your constituent@
to decide between on, Hal It never occurred to you that
the Claimant had an unfair trial! that when his mother
died he became a pauper, that as a pauper he fought for
years agalnat the( divernment infltienee,the familyinterest,
and the purse of the nation, with six of the cleverest men at
the bar, and a whole army of over-paid nnecrimulous
detective., and that they took years to convict him ; that
he was &orient of his mother's evidence by the constant
postponements of the trial, with no means at his ?Jimmied
to bring over the witnesses from Australia, that would not
only have gemmed him a venlict, but have proved, beyond
a doubt, the perjury and false witnem of thaw who swore
he was Arthur Orton ; that the jury gave evidence against
the Claimant unchecked by the Bench: and that the
Judge* also gave evidence against him in reference to
their unwarrantable visit to Tichlmrne Park, pending the
very trial itself; that recent events prove that the most
infamous charecters were brought from Australia by the
prosecution; that the secondary evidence, which proved
the existence of the "Osprey" with the crew of the
"Bella" on board, was objected to; and lastly, that 17 in.
forested negative witnemea were preferred in the first
trial as against the Fai disinterested affirmative ones who
swore to his identity and never broke down! Do you call
that a fair trial, where the judge admitted there was •
pave doubt, and that doubt refused to the prisoner by the
• jury You assert that the Claimant slandered innocent
persons, "to promote his own ends." I imagine you refer
to the sealed packet. But, the statement made by the
Claimant that he knew the contents of that packet was an
admission opposed to his intereste bemuse it prevented
his having the evidence of his cousin in his favour, who
, ?am bound to protect her reputation at all hazards. Had
' the unfortunate Claimant, on the other hand, denied all
knowledge of the contents, it would have been produced
as his death warrant. Ilea it never occurred to your
mind, a mind that has studied the cam from newspaper
reporta, that had the Claimant's version as to the con-
Pante of that packet been false, together with his state?
ment that Father Guides, the ',limit, privately married
hint to his cousin Kate, that Father Guidez, who was
present in court during the whole trial, would so a matter
of necessity, have been called to deny it, hod the fact of
his refusing to do en is conclusive evidence that the
Claimant 'woke the truth, and was recognised by the said
priest. Anil the n,ere circumstance of the Claimant
declaring that a request from hint was mentioned in the
packet to repair the cottagea at Prior's Deane, a fact
admitted by Gmford, proves if he knew part he knew all,
You aim boldly, and, as 1 venture to think, somewhat
too boldly smart, that the Claimant proves himself a bad
son. I should say if you, sir, had seen the love and
affection exhibited between that eon and that mother as
and many have witneased, I think you would admit that
the poor old lady isehl truly when she wrote to her
daughterdn-law, Lady Alfred, from Paris in reply, "that
the Claimant was indeed her dear and beloved son Roger,
a fact no one can doubt who ever knew him, and I hope
one day to take my dear granddeughter Acne in
one hand, and my dear grandmn Henry in the other." A
more devoted rIOIL and a more devoted mother, were never
seen, and I know for a fa't that when • priest threatened
her unless she disavowed her son, that she said "I prefer
to rick all you say, rather than ignore him."
Again, as to his character, have you ignored the facts
that the Lord Chief Justine of England said to the jury
that, by the Auatralian evidence, he was proved an honest
man, or words to that effect. That the Sollcitor Gibbes in
his letter to Dowager Lady Tichhorne, dated the 13th
January, ISM, wrote as follows —" It may be gratifying
to his relatives to know that low as he has descended in
• the social male, his character ban aped unimpeached I.y
any ;" and Cubitt also writes July 24th, 1861, to Lady
Tichborne, "I have the highest opinion of your sons
honour."
It is true he did declare ho never welt to Wapping,
became he wee foolieb enough to suppose that we, the
gentlemen of Hampshire, who had espoused hi a cause so
warmly, would think less of him for his vulgar intimacy
with a low butcher of Wapping. But he deeply ezpresmd
his regret in open court, and when a man regrets, and re•
punts, we must forgive, as we hope to be forgiven.
But. sir, I challenge you army other man to prove that
ho verged one hair's breadth from the truth in his cross-
examination. I have never met • more grateful man, as
his last letter to inn from Dartmoor proves. As to his being
a enducer of women: you and I know not. Let him that
ie without sin cut the first stone. If all seducers are to
he disinherited of their estates for that crime, I fear the
Howie of Lords and Commons might have empty benchea,
and that many a rich domain and flourishing factory
would change hands.
Am you aware that the Lord Chief Justice of England,
Sir Alexander Cockburn, the Judge who presided at the
Tichborne Trial, did convict and condemn, after the
tinanimoon verdict of a jury, a man at Hereford to fifteen
years' penal servitude, who was afterwards proved
innocent. Surely then we, the public, have a right to
believe that it is not "an assumption so very monetrous "
as you would make it appear, that judges and juries "can
err," or that the guilt of the Claimant is based "on •
reasonable hypothesis"
I have the honour to remain,
Your obedient servant,
GUILDFORD OPISLOW.