they are also told that 'truth is stranger than fiction,' and, what is more, that audacity is sometimes found better than either." And so the desperate mother "had it published out there that there were good grounds for believing her son, the heir of a splendid patrimony, to have survived a wreck off the coast of South America, where he had been traveling, and to have possibly found his way to Australia, where, for reasons of his own, he might have changed his name, assumed a disguise, and adopted some common occupation."
The advertiser found her customer. There was an adventurer in Australia, Arthur Orton by name, although passing under another cognomen, a butcher and stock-driver, who had sailed about the Atlantic and Pacific, had visited the places where Roger Tichborne had been, had had various occupations, was a kind of Catholic, and an adept at duplicity. He announced himself as Sir Roger Tichborne, the sole survivor of the lost Bella, who was picked up and taken to Australia by another vessel, which with all its crew had quite vanished out of existence. The case would seem to have been unpromising. The claimant was a fat, clumsy, ignorant, low-bred vagabond, who did not understand a word of French, and could not write a note without twenty vulgar blunders, and for twelve months after he gave himself out as Sir Roger he was ludicrously in the dark as to everything pertaining to the Tichborne family beyond a few stray facts which he had picked up from the newspapers—he did not know where the family property was situated, nor even his mother's name. It is said that at first he was hardly serious about his pretensions, but he was soon surrounded by plenty of those that were serious—attorneys, money-lenders, speculators, hangers-on of all kinds, stupid dupes and conscious accomplices, who backed him up, and urged him on in the enterprise of reclaiming the estate. Moreover, money was needed, and had to be advanced; and those who contributed it, although they may have doubted at first, doubted no longer.
Of course it will be said, a mother would know her own son, and the question of identification could be at once and very effectually settled. But she did not wait to see him before deciding the point. "As she had made up her mind, not only that her son lived, but also that he had lived for a long period among the scum of the human race, under false names and disguises, pursuing low occupations, and willfully forgetting all he was or had ever learned, her anticipations were only corroborated, and her faith strengthened by all she now heard of the man's figure, habits, language, writing, and associations." Every thing was encouraging, and seven years ago the claimant landed in England, and was at once recognized by the overjoyed mother as her long-lost son. The favoring circumstances and the tactics to which they gave rise are thus described by the Times writer:
"There was the infatuated mother, who at once handed over to her supposed son every letter, journal, and token of every kind, and all the information she could give toward the establishment—that is, the fabrication—of an identity. The claimant had also clever, and, of course, unscrupulous assistants, who saw at once what they had to do, and who did it. As the appearances were against him, they must not throw away a chance. What they had to do was to construct, by positive and particular evidence of the most minute and circumstantial kind, a fabric of identification so large that even if a good deal were knocked over, there would remain enough for the purpose, or, if not, enough at least to protract the war. Accordingly, all sorts of people were carefully hunted up. sounded as to their knowledge of the true Roger Tichborne, and their own recollections wound out of them. They were then plied with the evidence of others, and put upon the line of inquiry they were to take with the claimant. We think it may be said that every interview, not to say every meeting, of an apparently casual cast, was prearranged, and done by programme. Everybody was frankly told he would be rather startled at first, but at
