The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-06-01
TBE r,cgBORNE ROKd NOE

case, when Is certainty as strange and r0-
mantle a story, however viewed, as any TO be
found in sensational fiction. The prologue,
as Mr.. Boucicault would call it, introduces us
TO an eccentric, ill-matohed household, COM
posed of Sir James Tchborne, gruff and
violent and dissipsted, always drinking, and
often drunk; his highty, sentimental, half
French wife (she had an English father and
q French mother, and had been born, bred,
and spent most Of her life in FranceG the
eldest son, who has all his fathers boorish-
ness and his mothers waywardness, and
who, between the two parents, finds his
home, as be calls, "a hell upon earth. Lady
Tichborne, completely under the influence of
the priests, handed the boy over to them for
education. He began life under the Jesuits
at st. Omer, passed next to the military col
lege at Sandhurst, got commission in dra-
qoon regiment the Carbineers, served with
his corps at Dublin and elsewhere, but soon
took disgust both at the profession and the
company among which he was thrown. The
society of gentlemen repelled him. He liked
to booze and smoke with his interiors. His
brother officers laughed at the young fellows
half French, half English jsrgon, for French
was then his more familiar tongue, and
reprebated his low tastes and loose
companions. He sold his commission and
started to see life and seek adventure in
South America. From Havre he sailed in
March, 1853, to Valparaiso, pushed inland to
Santiago, where his body-servant a man
named Moore, was taken i'll; then set off
alone on a purposeless ramble hither and
thither, turned up at Rio, and in April, 1854,
embarked dead drunk in the Blanche, bound
for New York. From that day to this the
Blanche has never been heard of. One of her
boats was found bottom uppermost, but no
passenger or sailor who was on board Except
ha fha oil hoe
ever reappeared on earth. 1t was assumed
that the vessel had gone down at sea, the
underwriters paid the insurance, Rogers will
(for before leaving Europe he had made
wild was proved, and the old baronet, Sir
James, dying soon after, Sir Alfred, the
second son, succeeded to the title and
estates.
SIR ALFRED S DEATH.
Now begins the second part of the story.
Sir Alfred did not long enjoy his inheritance.
He died in 1866, and shortly after, in the
same year. an heir was born, who is the ao-
tual possessor of the property and rank.
Meanwhile old Lady Tichborne, refusing to
believe that her eldest son was dead, had been
advertising in all kinds of English, colonial,
and foreign papers, and on the death of the
second son redoubled the activity of her
search. In the beginning of 1866, man
appeared who declared himself the lonp-lost
Roger, and was accepted as such by the lady
whom he claimed as mother. Lady Tichborne
did not herself long survive, but to the hour
Of her death she maintained her faith in the
identity of the returned prodigal, allowed him
$1,000 q year and supported, by advice and
advances, the legal steps he proceeded to
take to assert his rights. The rest Of the
family for the most part repudiated the new
conner and pronounced him an impostor. The
claimants account of himself since he was
last seen reeling-drunk on board the ill-fated
Blanche, at Rio, is that the vessel sank, but
not until after the passengers and crew had
got into couple of boats; that the boats
soon parted company, but the one in which
he was fell in with an American vessel, which
took the party to Melbourne. Roger was
three days and two nights at sea in the small
boat, and nearly three months on board the
ship which landed him at Melbourne There,
he says, he got employment on a sheep farm,
adopted the name of Thomas Castro, and after
q while married.
THE CLAIMANTS RETURN.
In 1866 he heard for the first time of his
fathers death, and hurried back to England.
On behalf of the child of four years old, who
has hitherto been recognized as the baronet,
It is contended that the claimant is no other
than Arthur Orton, Mapping butcher, who
had worked his way out to Valparaiso before
over which ''Sir Roger" processes to have
travelled, and falling in with some old
servants of the Tichborne family in Aus
tralia, picked up from them sufi-
cient information to pass himself off
as the missing baronet. Since his re-
turn to England he has also won
over Moore, the man who accompanied the
real Sir Roger from Havre to Valparaiso. Ii
is certainly remarkable that of all those who
sailed with him from Rio in the Blanche, the
claimant should be the only one who has ever
reappesred; that he should have married and
settled in Australia without communicating
in any way with his family; and that he should
so long have delayed his return to claim the
title and estate. But the most staggering
part of the case is the personal differences
between the claimant and the Roger who went
away in 1858. 1t is admitted by his own
counsel that, at the latter period, Roger Itch
borne was slight in figure, with fair and
rather lank hair, and light-colored eyes. The
present ''Sir Roger" is of broad and bulky
frame, with crisp, dark hair. Another re-
markable discrepancy is that the Roger who
went away spoke French better than he spoke
English-French was, indeed, literally his
mother toDgue-but the Roger who has now
turned up doesn't know a syllable of the Ian
guage. On the other hand however, the
claimant evidently knows a good deal
(however learned) about the Tichborne
family and estates, and is sworn to as the real
Roger by several relatives aud old friends of
the house. There is one test he offers to
submit himself to, which keeps up the ro-
mantle nature of the narrative. Roger, be-
fore he Quilted the country, packed up
number OF documents in a sealed parcel
which he left with Mr.. Gosford, the steward
of the Tichborne estates, with instructions
10. 1rvs k,fA e,
the claimant offers to state the contents of
that parcel in order to prove his identity.