(The Tichborne Claimant.)
In the annals of crime, Arthur Orton, the notorious claimant to the
rich estates and title of Tichborne, takes a foremost place; not only
as the originator of one of the most colossal attempts at fraud on
record, but also from his remarkable success in duping the public. It
would be difficult indeed to furnish a more striking example of the
height to which the blind credulity of people will occasionally attain.
Of pretenders, who by pertinacious and unscrupulous lying have sought
to bolster up fictitious claims, there have been many before Orton;
but he certainly surpassed all his predecessors in working out the
lie circumstantial in such a way as to divide the country for years
into two great parties--those who believed in the Claimant, and those
who did not. Over one hundred persons, drawn from every class, and
for the most part honest in their belief, swore to the identity of
this illiterate butcher’s son--this stockman, mail-rider and probably
bushranger and thief--as the long-lost son and heir of the ancient
house of Tichborne of Titchborne. To gain his own selfish ends this
individual was ready to rob a gentlewoman of her fair fame, to destroy
the peace of a great family who, to free themselves from a persecution,
as cruel as it was vicious, had to be pilloried before a ruthless and
unsympathising mob, to have the privacy of their home invaded, and
to hear their women’s names banded from one coarse mouth to another.
Thus, and through no fault of their own, they were compelled to endure
a mental torture far worse than any physical suffering, besides having
to expend vast sums of money, as well as time and labour, in order to
protect themselves from the would-be depredations of an unscrupulous
adventurer. It has been estimated that the resistance of this
fictitious claim cost the Tichborne estate not far short of one hundred
thousand pounds.
[Illustration:
_Photo. by Maull & Fox. Copyright._