AN OPEN-AIR TICHBORNE MEETING.
When Sydney Smith, from the depths of his barbarian ignorance, sought to
rise to the conception of a Puseyite, he said in substance much as
follows:--"I know not what these silly people want, except to revive
every obsolete custom which the common sense of mankind has allowed to
go to sleep." Puseyism is not to our present purpose; but Tichborne-ism
is--for it has attained to the dignity of a veritable ism--and we may
define it much after the same method, as an attempt, not, indeed, to
revive the claims of, but to restore to society a person, who, after a
trial of unexampled length, was consigned by the verdict of a jury, and
the consequent sentence of the Lord Chief Justice, to the possibly
uncongenial retirement of Millbank Penitentiary. With the rights or
wrongs of such an event I have simply nothing to do. I abandoned the
Tichborne Trial at an early stage in a condition of utter bewilderment;
and directly an old gentleman sought to button-hole me, and argue that
he must be the man, or he couldn't be the man, I made off, or changed
the conversation as rapidly as I could.
But when the question had at length been resolved by wiser heads than
mine, and when, too, I felt I could write calmly, with no fear of an
action for contempt of court before my eyes, I confess that a poster
announcing an open-air Tichborne meeting in Mr. Warren's cricket-field,
Notting Hill, was too fascinating for me. I had heard of such gatherings
in provincial places and East End halls; but this invasion of the West
was breaking new ground. I would go; in fine I went. On the evening of
an exceptionally hot July day, I felt there might be worse places than
Mr. Warren's breezy cricket ground alongside Notting Barn Farm; so six
o'clock, the hour when the chair was to be taken, found me at the
spot--first of the outer world--and forestalled only by a solitary
Tichbornite. How I knew that the gentleman in question deserved that
appellation I say not; but I felt instinctively that such was the case.
He had a shiny black frock-coat on, like a well-to-do artisan out for a
holiday, and a roll of paper protruding from his pocket I rightly
inferred to be a Tichborne petition for signature. As soon as we got on
the ground, and I was enjoying the sensation of the crisp well rolled
turf beneath my feet, a man hove in sight with a table, and this
attracted a few observers. A gentleman in a light coat, too, who was
serenely gazing over the hedge at the Kensington Park Cricket Club in
the next ground, was, they informed me, Mr. Guildford Onslow. The
presiding genius of the place, however, was Mrs. Warren, who, arrayed
in a gown of emerald green--as though she were attending a Fenian
meeting--bustled about in a state of intense excitement until the
greengrocer's cart, which was to serve as a rostrum, had arrived. When
this occurred, the table and half a dozen Windsor chairs were hoisted
into it; another table was arranged below the van, with the Tichborne
Petition outspread upon it; and I fancied that arrangements were
complete.
Not so, however. The gentleman in the shiny coat and emerald green Mrs.
Warren between them tin-tacked up a long scroll or "legend" along the
rim of the van, consisting of the text from Psalm xxxv. 11:--"False
witnesses did rise up against me. They laid to my charge things that I
knew not." The association of ideas was grotesque, I know, but really as
Mrs. Warren and the shiny artisan were nailing this strip to the
greengrocer's van, they put me very much in mind of a curate and a lady
friend "doing decorations" at Christmas or Eastertide. Nor was this all.
When the "strange device" was duly tin-tacked, some workmen brought four
long pieces of quartering, and a second strip of white calico with
letters stuck on it was nailed to these; and when the stalwart fellows
hoisted it in air and tied the two centre pieces of wood to the wheels
of the greengrocer's cart, I found that it consisted of the Ninth
Commandment. The self-sacrificing carpenters were to hold--and did
hold--the outside poles banner-wise during the entire evening; and, with
one slight exception, this banner with the strange device, No. 2, formed
an appropriate, if not altogether ornamental background for the
greengrocer's van. Knots of people had gathered during these
proceedings; and I was confused to find that I was being generally
pointed out as Mr. Onslow, that gentleman having retired to the privacy
of Mr. Warren's neighbouring abode. Later on I was taken for a
detective, because, in my innocence, I withdrew ever and anon from the
crowd, and, sitting on a verdurous bank, jotted down a note in my
pocket-book; but this got me into such bad odour by-and-by that I felt
it better to desist, and trust to memory. Some of the smaller boys also
averred that I was Sir Roger himself, but their youthful opinions were
too palpably erroneous to carry weight.
In due course the van was occupied by Mr. Onslow, the Rev. Mr.
Buckingham (about whom I felt, of course, very curious), my shining
artisan, and a few others. A thin-faced gentleman, whose name I could
not catch, was voted to the chair, and announced to us that he should go
on talking awhile in order that Messrs. Onslow and Buckingham might
"refresh," as they had each come from the country. This they did coram
publico in the cart, while the chairman kept us amused. The wind, too,
was blowing pretty freshly, and was especially hard on the Ninth
Commandment, which gave considerable trouble to the holders of the
props. It was directly in the teeth of the speaker, too--an arrangement
which Mrs. Warren, in her zeal, had overlooked; and it was decided by
common consent to "reverse the meeting"--that is, to turn the chairs of
the speakers round, so that the Ninth Commandment was nowhere, and
looked like an Egyptian hieroglyph, as the reversed letters showed dimly
through the calico. The chairman eventually read to the meeting, which
was now a tolerably full one, the form of petition which was to serve as
the single resolution of the evening. I was struck with this gentleman's
departure from conventional legal phraseology on this occasion. Instead
of naming the cause célèbre "The Queen _versus_ Castro" (it being
written, as Sam Weller says, with a "wee") he termed it "The Queen _via_
Castro!" The petition was as follows:--
"That in the trial at Bar in the Court of Queen's Bench, on an
indictment of the Queen v. Castro, alias Arthur Orton, alias Sir Roger
Charles Doughty Tichborne, Bart., for perjury, the jury, on the 28th day
of February, 1874, brought in a verdict of guilty against him, declaring
him to be Arthur Orton, and he was sentenced to fourteen years' penal
servitude, which he is now undergoing.
"That your petitioners have reason to know and believe and are
satisfied, both from the evidence produced at the trial and furnished
since, and from their own personal knowledge that he is not Arthur
Orton.
"That though 280 witnesses were examined at the said trial in his
behalf, a very large number more, as your petitioners have been informed
and believe, were also ready to be examined, but that funds were not
available for the purpose, the defendant having been entirely dependent
on the voluntary subscriptions of the public for his defence.
"That your petitioners submit that such a large number as 280 witnesses,
most of whom gave positive evidence that the defendant was not Arthur
Orton, and whose testimony in two instances only was questioned in a
court of law--as against about 200 witnesses for the prosecution, whose
evidence was chiefly of a negative character--was of itself enough to
raise a doubt in the defendant's favour, of which doubt he ought to have
had the benefit, in accordance both with the law and the custom of the
country.
"That, under the circumstances, your petitioners submit that he had not
a fair trial, and they pray your honourable House to take the matter
into your serious consideration, with a view to memorialize her Majesty
to grant a free pardon."
The Rev. Mr. Buckingham, a cheery gentleman who bore a remarkable
resemblance to the celebrated Mr. Pickwick, rose to move the resolution;
and I could not help noticing that, not content with the ordinary white
tie of clerical life, he had "continued the idea downwards" in a white
waistcoat, which rather altered the state of things. He spoke well and
forcibly I should think for an hour, confining his remarks to the
subject of "Sir Roger" not being Arthur Orton. He (Mr. Buckingham)
belonged to some waterside mission at Wapping, and had known Arthur
Orton familiarly from earliest boyhood. His two grievances were that his
negative evidence had not been taken, and that he was now being
continually waited on by "Jesuits," who temptingly held out cheques for
_1000l._ to him if he would only make affidavit that the man in Millbank
was Arthur Orton.
Mr. Onslow, who seconded the resolution, however, made the speech of the
evening, and was so enthusiastically received that he had to recommence
several times after glowing perorations. The burden of Mr. Onslow's
prophecy was the unfairness of the trial; and his "bogies" were
detectives, just as Mr. Buckingham's were Jesuits. The Jean Luie affair
was the most infernal "plant" in the whole case; and he read records of
conflicting evidence which really were enough to make one pack up one's
traps and resolve on instant emigration. He was, however, certainly
right on one point. He said that such meetings were safety-valves which
prevented revolution. No doubt this was a safety-valve. It amused the
speakers, and Mrs. Warren and the glazed artisan; and it could do nobody
any possible harm. Whether it was likely to do the man of Millbank any
good was quite another matter, and one which, of course, it was quite
beside my purpose to discuss. There was a deal of--to me--very
interesting speaking; for I gained new light about the case, and stood
until my legs fairly ached listening to Messrs. Buckingham and Onslow.
When the editor of the _Tichborne Gazette_ claimed an innings it was
another matter; and--perhaps with lack of esprit de corps--I decamped. I
only saw this gentleman gesticulating as I left the field; but the rate
at which he was getting up the steam promised a speech that would last
till nightfall.
As I went off the ground I was struck with the clever way in which a
London costermonger will turn anything and everything to account. One of
them was going about with a truck of cherries, crying out, "Sir Roger
Tichborne cherries. Penny a lot!"
There was no symptom of overt opposition, though opponents were blandly
invited to mount the waggon and state their views; but there was a good
deal of quiet chaff on the outskirts of the crowd, which is the portion
I always select on such occasions for my observation. On the whole,
however, the assembly was pretty unanimous; and though it never assumed
the dimensions of a "monster meeting," the fact that even so many people
could be got together for such a purpose seemed to me sufficiently a
sign of the times to deserve annotation in passing.