TICH BORNIANA.

Dunstan Times, Issue 1188, 5 December 1884, Page 3

TICH BORNIANA.

The release of the Tichbome Claimant is accountable for the publication at n rather late period of some fresh evidence relating to that celebrated trial. Some three or four years ago the Defence Department ot this Colony removed to Invercargill from Mount Cook Barracks at Wellington a number ot shot and cartridge cases, some of which bore the name of the ship Osprey and dates varying from 1844 to 1856. Very little notice appears to have been paid to the circumstance at the time, and it was soon lost sight of. Recently, however, the Department has been removing a number of other ammunition cases from the old scores m the barracks, in order to deposit them in the brick stores which have just been competed, and in the process men have come across several additional cases marked “Transport Osprey," dated variously 1844,1846,1854, and 1856, and bearing the names of their destination ; for example, “ for Melbourne,” “for Hobart Town,” “for Sydney." These facts tend to prove beyond doubt that between 1844 and 1836 a ship named the Osprey did trade to Australia, and it will be remembered that during the progress of the Tichborne trial the Claimant stated that on the loss of the Bella he was picked up off the South American coast by a vessel called the Osprey, bound for Melbourne. Inquiries resulted in the discovery that there was no record of any ship of that name having visited Port Philip, the <-nly Osprey known there being a sehooner which has plied between Melbourne and Geelong. The ammunition cases in question were brongnt to New Zealand from the sister colony at the time of the Maori war, and have remained packed ia Mount Cook Barracks ever since.