Papurau Newydd Cymru

Chwiliwch 15 miliwn o erthyglau papurau newydd Cymru

Cuddio Rhestr Erthyglau

14 erthygl ar y dudalen hon

THE TICHBORNE CASE.

Newyddion
Dyfynnu
Rhannu

THE TICHBORNE CASE. On Monday morning the hearing of the Tichborne case was resumed (for the seventy-first day) in the estminster Session House, before Lord Chief Justice | .Dov111 and the special jury. At the commencement of the proceedings a long discus- Sion took place between Mr. Giffard, on behalf of the claim- JV^t, and the learned judge as to the rejection of evidence on J-ne last occasion to prove the possibility and probability under certain circumstances of persons forgetting their native language. The Chief Justice said he should adhere to the decision he pronounced on the last occasion. lie assumed the possi- bility o a person forgetting his native language, but he should reject any evidence tendered to show the probability that because one person had forgotten his or her native lan- guage therefore the claimant had forgotten his. He hoped this decision was perfectly plain. Laughter')81^' ^°' lny lort*' 1 can scarce^y s^y it Is Intimately .Mr. Giffard was allowed to call Mdme. laus- oerg. who said I am a native of Poland, and lived in that country up to the age of twenty. When in Poland I spoke German and Polish, and could write and read them, but I cannot now speak or understand Polish, though I have tried. a left Poland at the age of twenty, and returned in 18G6. I could not then speak to my own relations in Polish, though could in German. Giffard said he had several other witnesses whom he wished to call on this point, but in consequence of the deci- sion of his loidsliip having been misunderstood on the last f Ccasion, those witnesses had not been brought here to-day. to i '3eel1 allowed to do to-day what he was not allowed 011 the last occasion. If he had known he was to be .flowed to give evideuce on the point now before the court le would have had his other witnesses here to-day. The Due de Brisac was then placed in the witness-box with tov!-eiv Prove that the claimant's account of an accident which occurred to him in 1839 when at ilonvillard, in iirit- jwiy, was correct. The witness said he was present at the 'line the accident took place. The evidence of a WitllCS who had up to eleyen years of ^go spoken nothing but Iiindustanee, but who, though now only thirty years of age, had forgotten all that language, was then put in and read. The Attorney.General then proceeded to open the case on behalf of the defence but as our limited space precludes us from giving even an outline of the Attorney-General's opening speech in this remarkable case, we must content ourselves with giving the fol- lowing sketch of the seventy-first day's proceedings, which we take from the Daily News:— The crowded state of the Westminster Sessions House during the Tichborne trial is an old story, but its condition on Monday surpassed all previous experience. There were more people waiting patiently outside, and more people in court there was greater excitement and a stronger exhibi- tion of feeling than on any of the days on which the claimant was under examination. The bench, too, was fuller than it has been yet, &nd it was plain from first to last that the re- 80urees of the court and the urbanity of the oUicial to whom Lord Chief Justice Bovill deputes the dnty of giving or re- fusing orders of admission must have been sorely taxed. Those who have visited the Sessions House or Westminster Hall on any of the seventy preceding days of this trial, and who have thought either place full, would have been speedily convinced of their mistake on Monday. For shelves which had not been found out before, crevices which had been neglected, steps which were condemned as affording a view of nothing but the clock and the ceiling, were then as much sought after as the most eligible situations were on any previous day. Another infallible sign of the high value put upon the privilege of a seat, was the appearance of the court during luncheon hour. Those Jv'ho had good places kept them. There was none of that faith in human nature which requests a sister or a brother to keep a seat inviolate while its owner goes out to lunch. The rash person who undertook any such trust would have been infallibly sacrificed to the wild rage—all the wilder because it had to be sup- Pressed—of those who were balancing themselves Uneasily on tip-toe, or supporting stout spectators on their chests. Any vacant seat would have been taken by storm, so the general public ate its luncheon in court, or bore its hunger as best it might. It is a plain fact that to leave the court while the proceedings were in progress was a matter of almost insuperable diffi- culty. Those whose duties impelled them to make the at- tempt suffered in person and in clothes for they had to Knead and burrow their way through a crowd which wa3 so closely packed, that to penetrate it was as severe a trial as the most active athlete might wish for. Woe to the stout. They failed altogether, and were kept in court if they were in, er outside if they had failed to effect an entrance early. This was the case with the claimant. He, poor man, pre- sented himself as usual at the side door before luncheon, and attempts were made to clear a passage for him as before. It was impossible. Several excellent people squeezed themselves against the wall of the barristers' box on the one side, and on that of the box holding the ladies and gentlemen who are credited with being the claimant's friends on the other- with a vigour and persistency which were highly praise- worthy, and spoke volumes for their elastic compressibility, but all was useless. The claimant could no more have passed through the narrow gangway than the proverbial quart could be put in a pint pot, so the attempt was given Ill), and he retired, it was understood, to a side room. There was a certain flatness about the first part of the proceedings. Everyone was eager for the Attorney-General's speech and when, first, the Lord Chief Justice and Mr. Gilfard held a long argument as to the admissibility or the reverse of evidence and when witnesses were examined, an air of heavy disappointment fell npon the court. How long would the preface last: would the examination of the new witnesses close to-day ? Were there any other formalities to go through before Sir John Coleridge was "up?" These were the questions which were whispered softly for the first tliree hours or so. Then, at about one, there was a sigh of relief, for the Attorney-General rose and began his speech in terms of uncompromising vigour. There has been a good deal said in London society on who has ween strong and who weak, in the Tichborne trial; :md controversies have risen as to the relative develop- ment of these qualities in the various people concerned in the case. Mo question can arise as to the strength of the language of Sir John Coleridge on Monday. With great deliberation of manner, and with all the appearance of having weighed his woids well, the Attorney-General re- marked that he would show, or at least try to show, that the claimant was "a cunning and audacious conspira- tor" (a pause), a perjurer (another and longer pause), a forger (a look, as it seemed, of quiet triumph at tho jury), an impostor (in a slighting tone this, as if that part of the question were already proven), and a villain (a slightly melodramatic accent on the last word, and a full stop). At "us moment the occupants of what is called the Tichborne -x—namely. Sir John Coleridge's clients, seemed to na it impossible to restrain their feelings longer, and mere was a noise of approvingly derisive laughter, and of applause, which would have been particularly appro- priate in a theatre. The Attorney-General was, in short cheered, precisely as if he Wlre a wcH-l':1ce(l actor. Each epithet he hurled at the claimant ronsed the enthnslasm of this section of his auditory until when he stopped (as it seemed bccause he had exhausted the vocabulary of vituperation) there was the unseemly outbreak We have named. As a matter of course, tlns kmd of thing must be put down, and ..that. promptly, in a ease in which so much and such bitter personal feeling has been introduced, and Lord Chief Justice Dovill exerteu his authority in a few timely and sensible words, and the offence was not repeated. The Attorney-General was frequently as strong as this. When he denounced the part played by Mr. Baigent, for example, he did so with his hand raised against that gentleman and with a motion in the direction of Mr, Spoflorth, which recalled Mr. Disraeli's self-congratulations at the table of the House of Commons, being between him and his opponent. TVJien he declaimed against the blackguaiu letters of the claimant, he seemed to linger over the adjective, and to en- joy its iteration and when he spoke of the mass of flesh which the jury had seen in court, and the physical miracle it would require to convert a slIm and slender young man into it, he seemed to enjoy the phraseology he employed, and at being able to use it to the jury. But there were no more in- terruptions, and the occupants of the crowded court com- forted themselves on the whole with as much patIence as the veritable Jobs who spent the day on the curb-stone outside, and whose only excitement was makinga perfectly hopeless at- tempt to corrupt or to beguile the policemen who guarded the entrance to the court. The Duke of Wellington, Lady Alfred Tichborne, Mr. and Mrs. Radcliffe, Bogle, the black servant, and a vast quantity offaces which havebecome familiar to those who have watched the case were there and the seventy. first rlay of this memorable trial, certainly surpassed all its predecessors in the outward and visible manifestations of popular interest.

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