customers. And this is singularly true of builders' blunders; they all tend one way-to compel the householder to be always sending for the builder, or that bungling rascal the plumber, to grope for his hidden work, or botch his bad work, or clean his unscientific windows, or whitewash his idiotic ceilings, or rub his nasty unguents off God's beautiful wood, and then put some more nasty odoriferous unguents on, or put cowls on his ill-cleaned chimneys; or, in short, to repair his own countless blunders at the expense of his customer. Independently of the murderous and constant expense, the bare entrance into a modest household of that loose, lazy, drunken, dishonest drink-man and jack-man, who has the impudence to call himself "the British workman," though he never did half a day's real work at a stretch in all his life, is a serious calamity, to be averted by every lawful means. I am, Sir, yours faithfully, CHARLES READE. WHO IS HE? TO THE EDITOR OF THE "DAILY NEWS" SIR,-Your correspondent "Facing both Ways," complains that a trial, which lasted 101 days, has only revealed to him that the Tichborne Claimant is not Tichborne; who the man really is remains obscure. I think, sir, your correspondent makes his own difficulty; he overrates direct evidence, though this very trial has shown its extreme fallibility, and underrates circumstantial evidence. This is an illusion; circumstantial evidence avails to convict a man of a murder no human eye has witnessed; and à fortiori it avails to identify a pseudo-Tichborne with the man he really is. The proof of his identity lies in a number of circumstances, heterogeneous, and independent of each other, yet all pointing to one conclusion, and all undeniable, and indeed not denied. Now it is a property of such coincidences, that, when they multiply, the proof rises, not on a scale of simple addition, but in a ratio so enormous that at the sixth coincidence we get to figures the tongue may utter, but the mind cannot realise. In cases of murder I have never known a treble coincidence, pointing to one man as the murderer, fail to result in a conviction. But in the Tichborne case the barefaced coincidences, all pointing to the Tichborne Claimant as Arthur Orton, are not less than seven; and to these you may add one of superlative importance, viz., the coincidence of character. Character is the key to men's actions, and it is clear that Arthur Orton, when quite a youth, was instinctively inclined towards an imposture of the same kind, though not the same degree, that a jury has fixed upon the Tichborne Claimant. This youth, though "Begot by butchers, and by butchers bred," did yet hold his haughty head high out in Brazil, and boasted of some lofty origin or other. If your correspondent will only take a sheet of paper and write down, in separate paragraphs, all the undisputed coincidences, and then add the coincidence of character, and then add to that the circumstance that no other Arthur Orton could be found to go into the witness-box and say, "I am Arthur Orton," though those four words would have been worth fifty thousand pounds to the Claimant and his bondholders, he will see before him such an array of heterogeneous proofs, all radiating to one centre, as no recorded trial ever elicited before. Now, the naturalists have laid down a maxim of reasoning in such cases which every lawyer in England would do well to copy into his notebook: “The true solution is that which reconciles all the indisputable facts." Apply this test to the theories that the Claimant is Castro, is Doolan, is Morgan ; those theories all dissolve before that immortal piece of wisdom like hailstones before the midsummer sun. In the same way to use a favourite form in Euclid-it can be proved that no other person except Arthur Orton is the Tichborne Claimant. Is this uncertainty? What, then, of all we believe-either human or divine-is certain ?-I am, Sir, yours faithfully, CHARLES READE. ALBERT TERRACE, KNIGHTSBRIDGE, THE DOCTRINE OF COINCIDENCES TO THE EDITOR OF "FACT" FIRST LETTER SIR,-In reply to your query—it is true that after the trial at Nisi Prius, where "the Claimant" was Plaintiff, but before his trial at Bar as Defendant, I pronounced him to be Arthur Orton, and gave my reasons. These you now invite me to repeat. I will do so; only let me premise that I am not so vain as to think I can say anything essentially new on this subject, which has been fully discussed by men superior to me in attainments. It so happens, however, that those superior men have always veiled a part of their own mental process, though it led them to a just conclusion: they have never stated in direct terms their major premiss, or leading principle. This is a common omission, especially amongst Anglo-Saxon reasoners; but it is a positive defect, and one I do think I can supply. But before we come to the debatable matter, I fear I must waste a few words on the impossible—namely, that this man is Roger Charles Tichborne. Well, then, let those who have not studied the evidence and cross-examination, just cast their eyes on this paper and see a sample of what they must believe, or else reject that chimera. That Roger Tichborne was drowned with thirty more, yet reappeared years after, all alone, leaving at the bottom of the sea all his companions, and certain miscellaneous articles, viz. :— 1. His affection for his mother, his brother, and others. 2. His handwriting. 3. His leanness. 4. His French. 5. His love of writing letters to his folk. 6. His knowledge of Châteaubriand, and his comprehension of what the deuce he, Roger Tichborne, was writing about when he put upon paper-before his submersion--that he admired René, and gave his reasons. 7. His knowledge of the Tichborne estates, and the counties they lay in. 8. His knowledge of his mother's Christian names. 9. His knowledge of his beloved sweetheart's face, figure, and voice. 10. His tattoo marks, three inches long. 11. His religion. 12. Five years of his life. These five years lay full fathom five at the bottom of the ocean hard by No. 10, when this aristocratic Papist married a servant girl in a Baptist chapel, and was only thirty years old, as appears on the register in his handwriting, which is nothing like Tichborne's. Along with this rubbish we may as well sweep away the last invention of weak and wavering intellects, that the Claimant is no individual in particular, but a sort of solidified myth, incarnate alias, or obese hallucination. And now having applied our besoms to the bosh, let us apply our minds to the debatable. Since he is not dead Castro, nor dead Tichborne, nor live Alias, who is he? Here then to those, who go with me so far, I proceed to state the leading principle, which governs the case thus narrowed, and -always implied, though unfortunately never stated-led our courts to a reasonable conclusion. That principle is . THE PROGRESSIVE VALUE OF PROVED COINCIDENCES ALL POINTING TO ONE CONCLUSION. Pray take notice that by proved coincidences I mean coincidences that are― 1. Not merely seeming, but independent and real. 2. Either undisputed, or indisputable. 3. Either extracted from a hostile witness, which is the highest kind of evidence, especially where the witness is a deliberate liar; or 4. Directly sworn to by respectable witnesses in open court, and then cross-examined and not shaken-which is the next best evidence to the involuntary admissions of a liar interested in concealing the truth. Men born to be deceived like children may think these precautions extravagant; but they are neither excessive nor new they are sober, true, and just to both the parties in |