The Sun.
London, England, 1841-04-13 00:00:00

LAW INTELLIGENCE.

PRIVY CO UNCIL, APRIL 12.
WOOD AND OTHERS C. GOOHLAKE AND HITCHINS,
The SOLICITOR-GENERAL, in continuation from our
Evening Edition of yesterday, said—With respect to the
witnesses who spoke to the codicil by comparison
of handwriting, every Judge treated such evidence
very lightly, and he should not therefore trouble
their Lordships by any comments on this class of evidence.
He should rest his case upon the evidence of those wit-
nesses who were well acquainted with the testator's hand-
writing. One of those witnesses, produced by the oppo-
site party, had given evidence directly against them.
He trusted, upon further consideration, therefore, that
their Lordships would think this codicil to he the
handwriting of the testator. As to the legacies.
Was there any improbability in those to the corporation
oi* Gloucester? Notwithstanding the objections advanced
by his Learned Friend as to the differences between them,
it was nevertheless proved, that up to the time of his death
the testator kept up his intimecy and connexion with
them. It appeared from his own entries in a book
in which he entered such things, that he was
passed over as Mayor at his own request, and the
ether allegations of the disgusts he had taken to the
corporation were equally unfounded. It was, moreover,
not uncommon for penurious persons, who refuse I to con-
tribute charities in their lives, to leave large sums for such
purposes after their death. &yorel witnesses bore
testimony to the expression of his intentions at different
times to build almshouses, and in other ways to do some-
thing for the benefit of " old Gloucester:" These ex-
pressions did not apply to any trivial benefits, but such as
would be conferred by the bequest in the codicil. With
respect to Mr. Phillpotts, that gentleman bad
been an old friend of the testator's. Their Lord-
ships would observe the interest the testator took in
him and in the success of his elections, by the numerous
entries respecting him in his books, and when their Lord-
ships considered that by this legacy to Mr. Phillpotts the
testator left no relatives unprovided for, or expectations
unfulfilled, they would not think there was any
improbability in the bequest to him in the codicil.
In addition to these entries, and the probabilities of the
case, several witnesses spoke to the testator's expression
of his intention to benefit Mr. Phillpotts. There was also
similar probability and evidence with respect to the legacy
to Mr. Counsel, and with respect to the error in the way
in which that gentleman's name was spelt in the
codicil, it was extremely improbable that any per-
son would have forged such a document with-
out acquainting himself with the names of the per-
sons be was about to forge. So long as it was not
improbable that men of wealth should remember in their

wills the friends of their youth, and the companions of their
ago, there was nothing improb,ble in these bequests
to Mr. Phillpot's and Mr. Counsel. Unless Mr.
Helps were the forger for his own benefit, how difficult
it was to surmise any person who could have any benefit
in giving that gentleman by the codicil a sum of 30,0001. ?
The situation of that gentleman in life put such a supposi-
tion oat of question ; and no one but Mr. Wood himself
could have been interested in benefiting him by his property.
To Mri.Goodlake there was a bequest of 20,0001., which was
an important circumstance against the genuineness of
paper A, for while it was not very probable that he would
have left so large a sum to that lady, if by the former do-
cument he had left so large a sum to her son ; so, if he
was not aware of the existence of that document, it was
very probable be would have left that sum to
her. He (the Solicitor-General) therefore contended
that no circumstances could be adduced from the body of
the codicil to impeach it if it was established to be the hand-
writing of the testator. He submitted to their Lordships
that the handwriting was established, and that the codicil
was genuine. What then was the ground of the
decision rejecting this codicil? He should submit there
was no rule of law to prevent its being established
upon proof of handwriting. So far from this Court
being more strict than others with respect to hand-
writing, it was more lax,—it admitted comparison of
hands. And what would be the effect if the
Court refused this rule ? Would it not be to refuse any
will, out of the custody of the testator, written
under any circumstances, and communicated to those
most interested ? Might not a testator, to avoid
the importunities of those about him, send a
will in the manner of this codicil to some party
whom he intended to benefit, or might not a person in
danger at sea make a will and have it attested
by respectable witnesses, and inclosed in a bottle and
cast into the sea, and were the wills in either of
these cases to be rejected because there was no
other evidence than that of handwriting? They
had shown conclusively that there was another
testamentary paper, and when this codicil was introduced,
referring to another paper, with which, by the
acts of the appellants ho was prevented from
connecting it, he contended that his clients were
entitled to the benefit oefo
ilthene doubtconnected. which
The
Darnedmu s t exist
Gentle.wh
ther or not it was so
man then quoted the decisions in several cases in su
nand h
ad assertedbee been established
thatest
a btlhi
se
lir
dwtpaos
pn
no r
et
aosfe iin
iaerht
the satisfaction of the Judge, and yet the paper re
tohfe hhiasndcwar7ti

jected for want of other evidence.
The Learned! Gentleman was proceeding, when Lord
Lyndhurst inquired if he had nearly concluded, upon
which the Solicitor-General informed their Lordships that
he feared he should not be able to conclude his argu-
ment that evening, and their Lordships accordingly ad-
journed until to-morrow.

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.

FROM THE EVENING PAPERS OF YESTERDAY.
(From the Globe.)
The Times extends equal solicitude to the interests
of the Church and its churchyards; and is not more
indignant at the desecrating practices of the ex-Dean
of York, than at the want of consecrating efficacy
in the enclosures of the Abney Park Cemetery.
Christian burial is indeed the best that the Times can
afford to one of its proteges after another, in matters
ecclesiastical. It has followe,l so many silently to the
tomb, that no wonder it is anxious to be sure of conse-
crated ground for their successive accommodation. It
is. but yesterday that the Times was exulting in the
mighty revival which the pretensions of the Puseyites
had achieved in the frame of the Church. Where is its
Oxford protege now ? It is dead and gone ; or at least
fail le inert; and the Times is exalting the " direct

and summary corrective jurisdiction" of Whig-made
bishops. The sort of non-juring contumacy which
springs forth every now and then in the Church, and
of which Dr. Hook has again appeared as a sturdy
provincial ringleader, is no longer to be encouraged in
its sallies by Tory journalism. We are glad that
common sense is so far restored to the organs of
Opposition. That gun is spiked which was to do such
execution on Whiggery ! They hay.e more than one
Sachcvercl ; but unluckily no Swift ; and more than
one Church champion " to the death "—consistently
with keeping their living. The Times therefore is
driven back to its Meditations amongst the Tombs ;
and has discovered a new source of cede-
' siastical dangers in the cemetery companies. What
is endangered by these companies, so far as
we understand, are simply the fees which are
secured to clerical functionaries by the present dis-
graceful and fatal system of interments in and around
churches. And those fees are the only things secured
by that horrible system ; for to talk of security
to the dead in our populous church-yards, is an
insult to common-sense, and a gross speculation on
public credulity. Every metropolitan sexton could ex-
pose the nature of that security ; to say nothing of the
wholesale removals which the omnipotence of those
public authorities, invoked by the Times to perpetuate
the present destination of cemeteries, can at any time
decree, for the purpose of public improvements. We
have no care, or concern, for any particular ce-
metery speculation ; but we are sure that no' imper-
fection.in the security which they may offer the dead
can be so great an evil (though, of course, it is one
which ought to be remedied) as the present accumu-
lation of centres of infection and mortality to the
living. That these sources of disgust and disease are
kept open throughout the metropolis, in spite of de-
monstration, ad nauseam, of their inadequateness for
their professed purpose, and their inevitably pernicious
effects on the health of a vast population, the Times
may consider, if it pleases, as a proof of religious prin-
ciple, and belief in the doctrine of a resurrection. We,
for our part, consider it the grossest remnant of su-
perstition extant, mixed up with even grosser motives
(in the shape of fees) for maintaining the practice.
(From the Courier.)
We would not be alarmists, but it is impossible to
shut our eyes to the crisis which seems impending in
Irish affairs. The Tipperary tumults may be, and
not improbably are, the precursor only of risings and in-
surrection elsewhere on a more extensive scale and in a
more disciplined state of preparation. It is only neces
sary to mark the bard duty imposed upon the military,
to be satisfied that circumstances in Tipperary alone are
really of a more formidable and unfavourable character
than what upon a first and cursory glance would appear.
" The orders of the military are to scour the disturbed
districts day and night in bodies of twenty-five and thirty,
and to be in constant readiness for active duty at five mi-
nutes' warning. In the meantime, the work of blood-
shed and outrage progresses with fearful rapidity.
Two more murders were committed in the broad day-
light yesterday on the lands of Curraghmore, in the pa-
rish of Kilbarron. The names of these unhappy victims to
Ribanism were Tierney and Gleeson. Major-General
Sir Parker Carrole, the commanding officer of the dis-
trict, has been served with a Rockite notice, warning
him to be prepared for the fate which momentarily im-
pends over him, in consequence of ejecting a woman
from some land, the same being in direct contravention of
the Riband code. Assuredly the county would not be
filled and overrun with soldiery, unless upon the dis-
covery of some conspiracy and combined plan of
insurgent operations, with ramifications more widely
extending, than could be traced in a few examples, which,
horrible as they are, may be the fruits ofprivate revenge
consummated in the most appalling form of Irish murder.
Unless the most rigorously repressive measures are ap-
plied, and that without delay, the Tipperary flames may
swiftly catch in a country so deeply impregnated with
the inflammable spirit of O'Counellite disloyalty and
disaffection.