The Reminiscences of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) Part 29

This is how the advocate dealt with this little party in his address to the jury:--

"Gentlemen, can't you imagine the scene? Perkins, the lawyer, says to Biddulph, 'Come, now, Mr. Biddulph, you know you have had great experience in cross-examining as a county magistrate at Petty Sessions; now, cross-examine this man _firmly_, and you'll soon find he knows more than you think. If he's not the man, he's n.o.body else, you may be quite sure of that. But first of all,' says Perkins, 'what did you know of Roger? That's the first thing; let's start with that.'

"'Oh, not very much,' says Biddulph. 'He stayed at Bath once for a fortnight, while his mother was there.'

"'Pa.s.s Mr. Biddulph the champagne,' says Perkins. (Laughter.)

"'Now,' he adds, 'how did you amuse yourselves, eh?'

"'Well,' says Biddulph, 'we used to smoke together at the hotel--the--the--White something it was called.'

"'Did you smoke pipes or cigars?'

"'Well, I remember we had some curious pipes.'

"'Another gla.s.s of champagne for Mr. Biddulph,' (More laughter.) 'What sort of pipes?' asks the Claimant; 'death's-head pipes?'

"The magistrate remembered, opened his eyes, and lifted his hands.

Thus the amiable magistrate was convinced, although he said, candidly enough, 'I did not recognize him by his features, walk, voice, or twitch in his eye, but I was struck with his recollection of having met me at Bath.' The death's-head pipes settled him.

"As for Miss Brain the governess, she was of a different order from Mr. Biddulph. She told us she had listened to the defendant when he solemnly swore that he had seduced her former pupil, that he had stood in the dock for horse-stealing, and had been the a.s.sociate of highwaymen and bushrangers, and had made a will for the purpose of fraud; and yet this woman took him by the hand, and was not ashamed of his companions.h.i.+p. His counsel described her as a ministering angel.

Heaven defend me from ministering angels if Miss Brain is one!"

The Claimant, while in Australia, being asked what kind of lady his mother (the dowager Lady Tichborne) was, answered, "Oh, a very stout lady; and that is the reason I am so fond of Mrs. b.u.t.ts of the Metropolitan Hotel, she being a tall, stout, and buxom woman; and like Mrs. Mina Jury (of Wapping), because she was like my mother."

A witness of the name of Coyne was called to give evidence of the recognition of the Claimant by the mother in Paris, and the solicitor said to Coyne, "You see how she recognizes him."

"Yes," said Coyne; "he's lucky."

There was no cross-examination, and Mr. Hawkins said to the jury, "They need not cross-examine unless they like; it's a free country.

They may leave this man's account unquestioned if they like, but if it is a true account, what do you say to the recognition?"

Louie, the Dane, said that while the Claimant was on board his s.h.i.+p he amused himself by picking oak.u.m and reading "The Garden of the Soul."

There were several _Ospreys_ spoken to as having picked up the Claimant after the wreck of the _Bella_, and the defendant had not the least idea which one was the best to carry him safely into harbour.

The defendant's counsel, notwithstanding, had told the jury that he, Hawkins, had not ventured to contradict one or other of the stories of the wreck, and had not called the captain of the _Osprey_ which had picked him up.

Comment on such a proposition in advocacy would be ridiculous. Mr.

Hawkins dealt with it by an example which the reader will remember as having occurred in his early days:--

"'We don't know which _Osprey_ you mean.' 'Take any one,' says the defendant's counsel, reminding me of the defence of a man charged with stealing a duck, and having given seven different accounts as to how he became possessed of it, his counsel was at last asked which he relied on. 'Oh, never mind which,' he answered; 'I shall be much obliged if the jury will adopt any one of them.'

"You remember, gentlemen, the touching words in which the defendant's counsel spoke of Bogle: 'He is one of those negroes,' said he, 'described by the author of "Paul and Virginia," who are faithful to the death, true as gold itself. If ever a witness of truth came into the box, that witness was Bogle.'

"Well, you have seen him--Old Bogle! What do you think of him? Was there ever a better specimen of feigned simplicity than he? 'Bogle,'

cries the defendant, after all those years of estrangement, 'is that _you_?' 'Yes, Sir Roger,' answered Bogle; how do you do?'

"'Do you remember giving me a pipe o' baccy?' asks a poor country greenhorn down at Alresford. 'Yes,' answers the Claimant. 'Then you're the man,' says the greenhorn. Such was the way evidence was manufactured.

"A poor lady--you remember Mrs. Stubbs--had a picture of her great-great-grandfather's great-grandfather. In goes the Claimant, and in his artful manner shows his childhood's memory. 'Ah, Mrs. Stubbs,'

says he, looking at another picture, 'that is not the _old_ picture, is it?' (Somebody had put him up to this.) No, sir,' cries Mrs.

Stubbs, delighted with his recollection--'no, sir; but please to walk this way into my parlour,' And there, sure enough, was the picture he had been told to ask for.

"'Ah!' he exclaims, 'there it is; there's the old picture!'

"How could Mrs. Stubbs disbelieve her own senses?"

One, Sir Walter Strickland, declined to see the Claimant and be misled, and was roundly abused by the defendant's counsel. One of the jury asked if _he was still alive_. "Yes," said the Lord Chief Justice, although the defendant expressed a hope that they would all die who did not recognize him....

"In a letter to Rous, my lord, where he said, 'I see I have one enemy the less in Harris's death. Captain Strickland, who made himself so great on the other side, went to stay at Stonyhurst with his brother, and died there. He called on me a week before and abused me shamefully. So will all go some day'--this," said Mr. Hawkins, "was not exhibiting the same Christian spirit which he showed when he said, 'G.o.d help those poor _purgured_ sailors!'"

"Why should the defendant," asked Mr. Hawkins at the close of one of the day's speeches, "if he were Sir Roger, avoid Arthur Orton's sisters? Why, would he not have said, 'They will be glad indeed to see me, and hear me tell them about the camp-fire under the canopy of heaven,' as his counsel put it, 'where their brother Arthur told me all about Fergusson, the old pilot of the Dundee boat, who kept the public-house at Wapping, and the Shetland ponies of Wapping, and the Shottles of the Nook at Wapping, and wished me to ask who kept Wright's public-house now, and about the Cronins, and Mrs. MacFarlane of the Globe--all of Wapping.'"

The Judges fell back with laughter, and the curtain came down, for these were the questions with many more the Claimant asked on the evening of his landing.

"I shall attack the n.o.ble army of Carabineers," said Mr. Hawkins on another occasion. He did so, and conquered the regiment in detail.

One old Carabineer was librarian at the Westminster Hospital. His name was Manton, and he was a sergeant. He told Baigent something that had happened while Roger was his officer, and Baigent told the Claimant.

Manton afterwards saw the huge man, and failed to recognize him in any way. But when the Claimant repeated to him what he had told Baigent, Manton opened his eyes. This looked like proof of his being the man.

He was struck with his marvellous recollection, and was at once pinned down to an affidavit:--

"The Claimant's voice is stronger, and has less foreign accent,"

he swore; "but I recognized his voice, and found his tone and p.r.o.nunciation to be _the same as Roger Tichborne's_, whom I knew as an officer."

Truly an affidavit is a powerful auxiliary in fraud.

While Mr. Hawkins was replying one afternoon, Mr. Whalley, M.P., came in and sat next to the Claimant. He was from the first one of his most enthusiastic supporters.

"Well," he said, "and how are we getting on to-day? How are we getting on, eh?"

"Getting on!" growled the Claimant; "he's been going on at a pretty rate, and if he goes on much longer I shall begin to think I am Arthur Orton after all."

I will conclude this chapter with the following reminiscences by Lord Brampton himself.]

I had a great deal to put up with from day to day in many ways during this prolonged investigation. The Lord Chief Justice, c.o.c.kburn, although good, was a little impatient, and hard to please at times.

My opponent sought day by day some cause of quarrel with me. At times he was most insulting, and grew almost hourly worse, until I was compelled, in order to stop his insults, to declare openly that I would never speak to him again on this side the grave, and I never did. My life was made miserable, and what ought to have been a quiet and orderly performance was rendered a continual scene of bickering and conflict, too often about the most trifling matters.

With every one else I got on happily and agreeably, my juniors loyally doing their very utmost to render me every a.s.sistance and lighten my burden.

Even the Claimant himself not only gave me no offence from first to last, but was at times in his manner very amusing, and preserved his natural good temper admirably, considering what he had at stake on the issue of the trial, and remembering also that that issue devolved mainly upon my own personal exertions.

Nor was the Claimant devoid of humour. On the contrary, he was plentifully endowed with it.

One morning on his going into court an elderly lady dressed in deep mourning presented him with a religious tract. He thanked her, went to his seat, and perused the doc.u.ment. Then he wrote something on the tract, carefully revised what he had written, and threw it on the floor.

The usher was watching these proceedings, and, as soon as he could do so un.o.bserved, secured the paper and handed it to me.