Mr Hogarth's Will by Catherine Helen Spence

Early on the following morning Francis began his researches; but the TIMES and other journals of the date Mrs. Peck mentioned, which he searched through, proved quite barren of intelligence. The passenger-lists he could not find complete anywhere; the newspapers more especially devoted to these matters contained the passenger-list of the 'Lysander' bound for Sydney, for the first and second cabin, and in the latter the names of Mrs. Ormistown and Miss E. Ormistown were mentioned; but for the American ship, in which he supposed his real mother had sailed, there was no mention of any passengers except those in the first cabin; and in all probability, she being a poor woman, would sail in the steerage. There were also three vessels sailing for New York very close upon one another at the time, and he could not be sure in which the passage had been taken.

Mrs. Peck said the ship was to sail the next day; but her own vessel had been rather hurried to go with the tide, and there was no saying whether that was the case with the American one. But in all the American ships there was no mention of the names of the fore-cabin passengers. Then the police reports gave no account of any complaint having been made about an exchanged child, and when he eagerly turned to the coroner's inquests there was nothing to be seen there either.