THE TICHBORNE CASE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1267, 20 November 1884, Page 3

THE TICHBORNE CASE.

The release of the licit borne claimant is accountable for the publication at a rather late period of some fresh evidence relating to his celebrated trial. Some three or four years ago the Defence Department of this colony removed to Invercargill troin the Mount Cook Barracks at Wellington, a number of shot and catridge cases, some of which bore the name of the ship “ Osprey ” and dates van ing 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 oM stores in the barracks in order to deposit them in brick stores, which hare just been completed or are in progress of construction. Men have come acrovs several additional cases marked “ Traninort Osprey,” dated variously “ 1844,” “ 1846,” and “ 1856,” and bearing the names of destination “for Melbourne,” “ tor Hobart,” “ for Sydney.” These facts tend to prove beyond doubt that between 1844 and 1856 a ship named the Osprey did trade to Australia, and it will he 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 to Melbourne. Enquiries made resulted in the discovery that there was no record of any ship of that name having visited Port Philip, the only Osprey known there being a schooner which had plied between Melbourne and Geelong. The ammunition cases in question were brought to New Zealand from the sister colonies at the time of the Maori war, and have remained packed in Mount Cook Barracks ever since.