THE TICHBORNE CASE.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VI, Issue 211, 6 September 1871, Page 4

THE TICHBORNE CASE.

K flaneur, \n a sketch entitled "In and about the Law 'Courts/-" thus i describes the Sessions House at Westminster during the hearing of the. Tichborne case- :*A-When Sir Roger de Coverly conjured Mr. Spectator to tell him truly whether his portrait, painted for the sign of an inn, and afterwards altered to the Saracen's Head, was not still more like himself than a Saracen, the prudent reply was that "much might be said on both sides." To such of our readers as are desirous of being aided in their conjectures as to the identity of a certain other much changed head with that of a certain other Sir Roger, we cannot give a better reply than that of Mr. Spectator — "Much may be said on both. sides." We may, indeed, go further, and say that much has beeh said on both sides; and, judging from the appearances, much more remains to be said. The interest taken by the public in the great Tichborne trial has increased daily since its commencement more than three weeks ago, and reached a pitch of almost feverish excitement when on Friday last it became known that the direct examination of the claimant was finished, and that his cross-examination by Sir John Coleridge had begun. The state of things outside the Westminster Session House — we beg its pardon, the Guildhall, Westminster — on Friday afternoon resembled nothing so much as the neighborhood of the Hanover-square Rooms during a fashionable morniog concert. There were coroneted carriages with wigged coachmen and powdered footmen : there were qaiet broughams, of unexceptionable build; there were belted grooms and stately footmen : there were policemen told off "to keep that passage clear," and there was the usual crowd of loitering idlers that are to be seen at the doors bf all places of public entertainment — people who seem to have boundless leisure and insatiable curiosity : who, "judging from the rapidity with which they assemble in a mass, may have dropped from the clouds or risen from the earth; who haven't the slightest chance of being ever permitted to cross the threshold of the doorway around which they congregate, but are seemingly as contented with their chare of the fun aa the little urchins in John Leech's famous sketch, whose sum of happiness was completed when, lying on their faces, and peeping under tbe edging of the circus tent, they were actually enabled to see the " 'oofs of the 'osses." The impression conveyed by tbe outer aspect of the Sessions House was not at once dispelled apon entering the building. The court in question looks as if it had been originally built for a concert-room or a lecture- theatre. It is an octagon in shape, and a couloir (Anglice, box-lobby) runs round the audience part, of the building, from which doors open on to the various parts of the "house." . As one enters the court-room from the south door, the bench, a long double row of seats, is opposite. In the middle of the bench is a canopied chair for the judge, and below it a sort of auctioneer's desk for the associate of the court. The side of the octagon on the right hand is appropriated to the jury-box, that on" the left to the barristers' seats. Facing the.bi_.iacb. is what looks like a big family pew with spikes , it was formerly the dock, but is now filled by a crowd of the patient representatives of the press, to whose voluntary imprisonment and hard labor it is due that full reports of the day's proceedings are before nightfall published throughout the length and breadth of the land. This dock or pew, too, represents the great gulf fixed between the witnesses in attendance ou either side, the space on the left being tenanted by those of the claimant, while " the family " are on the reporter's right. The middle of the floor is the camp of the respective attorneys, who are attended by retinues of clerks in charge of cartloads of , papers. Between the dock and the jury there is what is called by courtesy the witness-box, but which resembles nothing in the world so much as a miniature pulpit ; it has a desk in front, a doorway at the back, and a sounding-board overhead. Here , sat the plaintiff during the whole of Thursday and Friday. The strength of its construction was severely tested by the burly occupant of the pulpit. Whatever opinions may be held as to the weight of the evidence, the most sceptical can entertained no doubts as to the weight of the witness. ,He swore he was 26st. 41b„and he looks every ounce of it. As he moved, the frail rostrum creaked and quivered under the unwonted strain ; and once on Friday afternoon, when a question from Sir J. Coleridege roused him to anger, and in an outburst of emphatic excitement he Btruck the front desk with his clenched fist, there was reason tb fear lest he should bring down thje»i whole, of -ifefcj trembling pulpit, sounding board and all, and that an attorney's clerk or two, and a couple of innocent ushers might be buried ia the ruihß. J^iwt of >he Mines of the AAAy.A.;yA-' „ .-',■"'-''•.• 'A-iyy *„-,..-,•; aa ;■..*;;

occupants of the bench seats would read like a column from a Court Circular. There was a be-wigged hydra in the space allotted to the bar, while such of the " outer public " as could gain admission packed themselves in wherever there was an inch of space, and kept all tight like stowage in a ship's hold. It was arranged" by mutual consent at the beginning of the. trial that Saturday^ in each week should be relache, and it was therefore possibly in pursuance of a skilful scheme of forensic strategy that the direct examination of the plaintiff was made to end on Friday at mid-day, and the defendants' counsel thus forced into a beginning of the cross-examination, and a consequent revelation of the line of defence* with a certainty of adjournment for two clear days. It is, howeyer, tbe part of a skilful general to be prepared against all the wiles of the enemy, and so Sir John Coleridge applied himself vigorously to the task of cross-examination — more vigorously perhaps than he would have done if it was not necessary to conceal the efFe.t of an obvious surprise, but when the court rose on Friday the cross-examination h_.cl advanced but a little way.