The Sun.
London, England, 1831-06-13 00:00:00

17.Fiabeth Woods, without having separately visited
.nd personally examined her.
The facts which had Jed to the prosecution were
these :—The defendant, Mr Janes, had for some
•ime prior to February, 1830, attended Mrs. Woods;
'lid had given an opinion as to her insanity. At
he beginning of February her husband determined
o have her confined in a lunatic as) lum,, and Mr.
Sheldon, the partner of Mr. Jones, saw her on the
9,h of February (haying frequently attended her
before), and in the absence of .Mr. jones,4ho was
confined to his house by illness, gave a Certificate
of her insanity. The certificate was signed also by
Mr. Jones, and under the joint certificate Mrs. Woods
was conveyed to Mr. Warburton's house in Beth•

nal-green.
The COURT sentenced the defendant to the pay-
ment of a fine of 20/.

COURT OF EXCHEQ UER, JUNE 11.

Mr. F. POLLOCK applied, as a matter of favour,
for their Lordship=' interposition in the following
extraordinary circumstances :—The object of the
Learned Gentleman's motion was, to put off a trial
which, if not prevented by the Curt, would take
place at the sitting after the present term. The
action was against an Insurance Company, by a
gentleman who sued as executor of a young- lady,
whose life had been insured at the office in question
for a large sum of money. In support of his mo-
tion, Mr. F. Pollock stated, that the young lady
had, in the course of last year, insured her life in
different offices in London to the amount of 16,0001.
or 17,0001. At the different offices she stated some
different motives for effecting the re=pective policies.
and upon one occasion admitted that she knew no-
thing of money matters, but acted in obedience to

the -suggestions of her friends, who had recom-
mended to her to have her life insured. In these
circumstances, the office in question declined to
effect the insurance, and a report having gone
abroad that a young lady was in the practice of
proceeding from office to office attempting tf_i effect
insurances upon her life to a large amount, and
under circumstances which excited some suspicion,
the offices to which she afterwards applied refused
to accept her proposals. The lady, who was then
about 16 years of age, resided at that time near
London, with the plaintiff in the present action.—
They soon afterwards removed into town, where
they occupied furnished lodgings, and where the
lady was one night suddenly taken ill on coming
from the theatre, and silently afterwards died in
convulsions. The insurance office had thought it
due to themselves, to the public, and to the admi-
nistration of justice, to sift such a transaction to the
bottom, and had therefore fi'ed a bill of discovery
against the plaintiff in the present action.
The LORD CIIIEF BARON inquired whether the
deceased young lady had bequeathed her property to
the plaintiff in the action.
Mr. POLLOCK answered that she had left all her
property to a sister, who now lived with the plain-
tiff. In answer to another question of the Court, the
Learned Gentleman stated that the deceased was,
at the time of effecting the insurances, in the most
perfect health. He went on to say, that although
the statement of such a case was calculated to pro-
duce a suspicion " infinitely horrible," yet he was
able to rest his present application upon grounds
which rendered it unnecessary in this stage of the
proceedings to consider the probability of that" hor-
rible criminality," the apprehension .of which must
immediately glance upon the mind of every person
who heard such a story. It appeared that the young
lady :was, as may easily be supposed, entirely igno-
rant of business ; that she was entirely under the
controul of the plaintiff ; that she had no interest or
assignable motive in effecting the insurances upon
her own account ; that she had no money to pay

the expenses of insuring except what was furnished
to her by the plaintiff; and that, therefore, the in-
surances which had been effected in her own name
were .in reality not tier's, but his. If this should
proymikbOtie ease (and the object of the bill of
d'aeci'very was to ascertain the truth in that matter),
then the insurances would have been totally void,
being in direct opposition to a statute, and the plain-
tiff would have no right of action at all.
The COURT granted a rule Nisi.
The names and tesidences of all the parties were
mentioned, but we have thought it our duty to sttp
press them for the present, as the party on whom
the weight of imputation has been cast was not
present for his defence, and cause may perhaps be
shown hereafter against the conditional rule.