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The Green Bag.

unfounded antipathy had prevented the not be really sound upon other subjects, and testator from properly appreciating his impliedly held that a person really insane daughter's claims upon him and that the could not make a will. In Smith r. Tebbitt, will must be pronounced against. Л strange where the testatrix thought that her sister, to case of a valid will being made by a lunatic whose prejudice the will in dispute was made, patient in an asylum was Cartwright т. Cart- was a child of the dead for whom the Deity wright (1793-95. I Phillim 90, 122). On had reserved the hottest place in hell, Lord Aug. 14, 1775, the patient was supplied Penzance, then Sir J. P. Wilde, still further with pen, ink and paper by Dr. Battic, the expanded Lord Brougham's inaccurate theo asylum superintendent, to quiet and gratify ry. " If disease," he said, " be once shown to her, although he considered her at the time exist in the mind of the testator, it matters quite incapable of making a will. Her at not that it be discoverable only when the tendants retired but watched her. She was mind is addressed to a certain subject to the so agitated and furious that they were afraid exclusion of all others, the testator must be she would do some mischief to herself. At pronounced incapable. The same result fol first she wrote upon several pieces of paper, lows though the particular subjects upon and got up in a wild manner, tore them and which the disease is manifested have no con threw them in the fire. Then after walking nection whatever with the testamentary dis up and down the room many times, mutter position before the court." ing and speaking to herself, she wrote the (3) In 1870 Sir Alexander Cockburn paper which was the will in question. Pro brushed away these webs of metaphysical bate was granted on the ground that the subtlety in his judgment, in the case of Banks will was originated and executed by the v. Goodfellow. Compendiously stated the testatrix herself and that its provisions were facts were these: A had made his will in wise and orderly. This case has sometimes favor of B, his niece, who had lived with him been quoted in support of the assertion that for many years and to whom he had always the instrument itself is the best proof of the expressed an intention to leave his property. testator's capacity or the reverse. In point At the time of making the will he was under a of fact it lays down no such principle, as Sir delusion that a man named FeatherstoneWilliam Wynne, who tried the case, took all haugh, to whom he had borne a" violent the circumstances into account in making hatred and who was actually dead, was still up his mind upon it. alive. This man had no claim whatever up (2) In 1848 the case of Waring г Waring on A. The jury found in favor of the will, came before the privy council. The point probate was granted and the Court of at issue was the validity of the will of Sarah Queen's Bench refused to set aside the ver Gibson, an elderly lady who was penurious, dict. "It is essential," said Chief-Justice eccentric, irritable and quarrelsome, and who Cockburn, "to the exercise of the powers of had disinherited her brother under an insane making a will that, the testator shall under delusion that he had joined the Roman stand the nature of the act and its effects; Catholics, towards whom she entertained a shall understand the extent of the property strong aversion. There was obviously quite of which he is disposing; shall be able to enough in these circumstances to bring the comprehend and appreciate the claims to case within the ratio dccidcndi of Dew v. which he ought to give effect; and, with a Clark. But Lord Brougham, who was nothing view to the latter object, that no disorder of if not metaphysical, went out of his way to the mind shall poison the affections, pervert declare that the mind, being one and indivisi his sense of right, or prevent the exercise of ble, if unsound upon a single subject could his natural faculties, that no insane delusion

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