e
child repeatedly during the three following months, although it was
admitted that its existence was kept a profound secret from everybody
else. The three women above-mentioned were placed in the witness-box,
and gave their evidence clearly and firmly, and agreed with each other
in the story which they told; and, although Mrs. Bloor was rigorously
cross-examined, her testimony was not shaken. When Mr. Baudenave was
wanted he could not be found, and even the most urgent efforts of
detectives failed to secure his attendance before the court.

On the other side it was contended that the story told on behalf of
the infant plaintiff was so shrouded in mystery as to be absolutely
incredible, and that it was concocted by the missing Baudenave, who
was said to have been living on terms of suspicious familiarity with
Mrs. Howard, and who had succeeded in inducing the witnesses to become
accomplices in the conspiracy from motives of self-interest. Evidence
was also produced to show that the birth had not taken place. A
dressmaker, who measured Mrs. Howard for a dress, a little time before
the date of her alleged confinement, swore that no traces of her
supposed condition were then visible. Dr. Baker Brown and another
medical man deposed that they had professionally attended a lady, whom
they swore to as Mrs. Howard, and had found circumstances negativing
the story of the confinement; and Louisa Jones, a servant, who lived
in the house in Burton Street shortly after the birth of the infant,
said she had never seen or heard of its existence. After the hearing
of this evidence the case was postponed.

On its resumption Mrs. Howard produced witnesses to show that she was
at Longley, in Staffordshire, during the whole of that period of
August, 1864, to which the evidence of Dr. Baker Brown and the other
medical witness related.

At the sitting of the court, on the 1st of March, 1870, Sir Roundell
Palmer (Lord Selborne), who represented Charles Francis Howard, the
other claimant, gave the whole case a new complexion by informing the
court that he was in a position to prove that, in the month of August,
1864, Mrs. Howard and another lady visited a workhouse in Liverpool,
and procured a newly-born child from its mother, Mary Best, a pauper,
then an occupant of one of the lying-in wards of the workhouse
hospital. In support of his assertion he was able to produce three
witnesses--Mrs. Higginson, the head-nurse, and Mrs. Stuart and Mrs