A STRANGE CAREER.

Thames Guardian and Mining Record, Volume I, Issue 275, 26 August 1872, Page 3

A STRANGE CAREER.

Among the men brought up at the City Police Court on Thursday, charged with gambling in a Chines den, in Little Bourke-strcet, was one whoso Australian career is well woith recapitulating, as showing the degredatiou into which men of high position fall when they once enter upon what is very truthfully, though vuli garly, termed a “ loose life." Tichborne, if he of Wagga Wngga is Tichborne, had some strange experiences while he resided in this part of the country, but his life has hardly been as eventful as that of Henry Travers, alias Thomas Gerald Golding, alias Frank Hogg, alias Powell. Travers, who is said to be the heir to an English baronetcy, seems to have spent his Australian lift chiefly within the four walls of a prison cell. He first appeared in this country in tho year 1865, having arrived by a ship called the Ulcoates,from London. Ho described himself as Thomas Gerald Golding, a lieutenant in the Royal Navy, and for some time he led what is e tiled a fast life in Melbour e. Towarda the close of that year he appeared to have run short of supplies, for on the Ist February, 1866, he was brought up at the City Court on two charges of obtaining money by false pretences, for which ho was sentenced to three and six months’ imprisonment at Pentridge. He was liberated at the close of the year; but ho .was not at large more than two or three mouths before he had recourse to his old means of raising tho wind. On the 21st March, 1867, lie was apprehended on four charges of obtaining property by false representations, and received four sentences, extending over a period of 16 mouths. He served this period at the stockade at Pentridge, but he was little benefited by prison discipline. He had tried all he could to raise money by fraud, but ho had now got the length of his tether. A new idea, however, seized him, and he caine out as a detective. He went about for a time personating one of these clever people, but the game did not answer ; he was arrested, and once more sent to Pentridge for tw® years. During this period he met with an accident, which brought on paralysis, and when he was once more set at liberty, he bad to seek shelter at the Immigrants’ Home and the Benevolent Asylum. He left the Home, and took one of the female nurses with him, and the disgrace which he had brought upon himself at the charitable institutions, impelled the mauagers of those institutions to close the door against him. Some time ago he sent a letter to his Excellency tho Governor, asking his assistance, and in that letter he represented himself to be the son of General Travers, then in India, and as there happened to be an Indian officer in Melbourne at the time, it is understood that his Excellency commissioned him to make inquiries as to the truth of the statement when he returned to join the army. Should these reports prove correct, Henry Travers will one day be a baronet, and we shall have another piece of romance to record. — Leader.