... Out-Homing Home, and curing folks' diseases, Giving blind and dumb, and deaf and halt, eyes, ears, tongues, legs as he pleases; By laying his hands upon them, and bidding their ailments begone, And doing it all for love, and not money--the downy one! And for all our march of intellect, and our monarchy of mind, There's never a Reynard the Fox, but he draws his tail of fools behind; And there's never a quack that quacks, but he finds green geese to echo his quacking, And never a swindler that lowers his trawl, and finds the flat fish lacking! [Illustration: "THE OLD MAN OF THE SEA" SINBAD (as representing the British Public): "I can't be expected to attend to any of _you_, with this 'Interesting Topic' on my shoulders!"] As Dr. Newton professed to cure diseases partly by mesmerism, partly by the aid of "disembodied assistants," the spiritualist newspapers waxed lyrical in his praise, while _Punch_ contented himself with pointing out the entire absence of any expert verification of his alleged miracles. If it almost amounted to a privilege to be imposed on by so splendid and well-connected an impostor as Home, the famous Tichborne case exhibited Victorian credulity in a less favourable light. Home's influence was confined to the well-to-do, even well-educated dupes. Though he toured the provinces, lectured and read poetry with considerable acceptance, he was most in his element among the "classes" and in Belgravia. The Claimant's appeal was far wider: he was the hero of the masses and of all the great army of the half-baked. Yet the element of romance was not wanting: there is always something "arresting," as the moderns say, in the emergence of a missing heir; everything connected with the business was on a huge scale--beginning with the physique of the Claimant himself, who weighed twenty-four stone--and at its worst it was far removed from the squalors of "Brides in Bath" and other modern trials. The unshaken belief of the Dowager Lady Tichborne was a great asset; the extraordinary astuteness of Orton in veiling his colossal ignorance and turning the hints of his cross-examiners to good account extorted reluctant admiration even from those most convinced of his guilt. There never was a greater example of the saying that "one lie is the father of many." The force of circumstances was too strong for him. It is generally believed that he would have abandoned his claim long before the first trial but for the pressure of his creditors. He was a seven-years incubus on England, but throughout the whole affair he showed a sort of perverted bulldog tenacity which accounted largely for his popularity.