The Sun.
London, England, 1864-05-19 00:00:00

The Derby Will Case,

This remarkable case, which was supposed to have
terminated with the verdict of the specie' jury in
favour of Mr. Nuttall's will and against the disputed
codicils, is once more before the public under more
extraordinary circumstances than ever. It appears
that Mr. George Wee, who resided in the house in
which Mr. George Nuttall died, recently decided
upon breaking up his establishment. On Friday
last his furniture was sold by auction, and a Tudor
bedstead was purchased by Mr. Crofts, a cabinet-
maker at Matlock Bank, and brother-in-law to Mr.
Else. From the top rail at the head of the bedstead
(says the Derby Mercury) to the cross rail which
ions at the bottom of the head board was, as is usual,
strained a sheet of linen or other texture, and after
the purchase Mr. Crofts and his boy were engaged
toking off this sheet by pulling out tacks binding
it to the cross rail. Whilst this was being done a
packet of papers fell out. They were handed almost
immediately to Mr. Stone, solicitor, who was attend-
ing the sale, and he found that the packet contained
two separate documents. The first was the draft of
a will—not signed—but evidently intended to be a
series of instructions to a professional man, upon
which a will should be drawn up. This draft,
amongst other bequests, gives the Bonsall and Ash-
over estates to John Nuttall ; the Matlock nit-
terton to John Else, and several legacies to different
persons in the parish and neighbourhood. Under the
will declared valid by the Court of Queen's Bench
the Snitterton estate, for which Mr. Nuttall paid
somewhere about £16,000, was conveyed to Eliza-
beth Sheldon., and in the draft this is, as we have
said, transferred to Else. The draft was to be
laid before Mr. Green (Mr. Newbold's clerk), and
his name is frequently mentioned in it. The
second piece of paper bore many memoranda,
all relating to the disposal of the testator's
prtverty, and the codicils found at Mr. New.
bold's office, at Else's house, and in the jar placed
in the hole in the wall. The memoranda are very
curious. In one the finder is directed to go into
"No. 2 cellar," and look in a pot particularised
with the utmost minuteness. Each memcrandum
is dated, and complains of Air Chinery, the testa-
tor's surgeon, and of Catherine Marsden, who are
accused of having kept him from his friends, more
especially Mr Green and Mr Job Knowles, and
another says that as he cannot get his friends to
witness his lest will he calls upon God to witness
it for him, and he adds, in pencil, " May God
forgive my former sins, and take my soul to
Heaven." In another sentence the memorandum
directs the finder to go to his tool house (the room
where the jar was found), and adds that there the
third codicil will be found, and two others in a
cupboard. The codicils found by Else and at Mr
Newbold's office were supposed to have been amongst
papers taken out of the deceased's cupboard. The
tool house is behind the room in which Mr Nuttall
died, and upon his death-bed he frequently said,
"Look behind--look behind John." These words
were at first supposed to refer to the tool house, but
they are now believed to refer to the two docu-
ments so strangely discovered last Friday, in a place
where it was quite easy for a person lying in bed to
put them without assistance. In the memoranda