The Sun.
London, England, 1859-05-25 00:00:00

(Fiona a CorrespoiTdent of tile Ti,ars.)
' 'The most famous lawsuit of modern times is near
its close. We must soon condole with the bar upon
the termination of the great Thellusson will case,
and congratulate the successful litigant on the rem-
nants of a, fortune which was to have endangered
the liberties of England. The last act is all but
over—the curtain is about to fall. At such a
moment, only the other day a correspondent in our
columns suggested a compromise. So Mr. Pease
interposed between Russia and England, and with
an equal probability of success. Compromise the
great Thellusson case ! You might as well talk of
settling the Derby, or compromising a fight for
the championship. The great Thellusson c ise was
meant to be fought out. Besides, what would the
lawyers say ? Time out of mind Chancellors and
Judges, with watering mouths and itching hands,
have clutched at the tempting prize till it has fared
with it as it often fares with some precocious fruit
within reach of impatient fingers—squeezed and
pinched before it is ripe, its shrivelled form seems
the ghost of what it might have been, while black
and ugly finger-marks make it hard to say what
manner of fruit it originally was. So it has been
with this will. The great difficulty appears to bo
to divine the testator's intention amid the prema-
ture squeezings and pinches of judicial commen-
tators, while the property in dispute is now no
bigger than it was 60 years ago.
Sixty years ago there died in England a French
refugee named Peter Thellusson. He had been a
merchant in Paris, and he afterwards carried on the
same business in London: The world had prospered
with him. He was enormously wealthy. lie him-
self gracefully attributes his wealth to industry and
integrity; his friends ascribed it to less laborious
and more questionable means. Be that as it may,
he left behind him sons and daughters who expected
to share their father's property. His will was
opened. It was a lengthy and careful document.
It began in a strain almost prophetic by imploring
the Legislature not to alter the provisions it con-
tained. Many a long night had he spent over those
provisions, musing alone as he paced up and down
the corridors of an old house he had bought in
Yorkshire. So family tradition runs. But, save
himself and his lawyer, no one as yet knew its con-
tents. It was read. To their horror, his sons
received much advice, but small fortunes ; great
warnings against ostentation, and little wherewithal
to be ostentatious. The bulk of his wealth was not
for them. The old man had hoarded in his lifetime ;
nothing would serve him but to hoard in his grave.
His property was to go on accumulating as long as
the law would allow, and then it was to be divided
into three lots, and three families were to be founded
in the person of a descendant of each of his three
sons. We will follow one lot—the provisions are
the same as regards each.
One lot was to be settled upon all the male lineal
descendants of his son Charles living at the time of
division, in order. In what order ? is the question.
First, says the will, upon the eldest and his issue,
then upon the second and his issue, and so on
through them all, excluding from the series any
son or descendant of any previous taker, who would,
of course, take through his parent or ancestor. Now,
the appellant or respondent are both of them male
lineal descendants—one as much so as the other.
But which is the eldest now living ? One is first in
age, the other is the heir in tail male of Charles
Thellusson.
Our readers may perhaps remember Sir Roger
Scratcherd's defence of his will in Mr. Trollope's
novel of "Doctor Thorne" :—" I don't know one of
them ; never even heard of them. I have given it
to the eldest ; that's plain enough. How the deuce
can Ibe more explicit ? The eldest is the eldest all
the world over." Now, this is just the appellant's
argument—eldest is eldest all the world over. But,
alas ! novelists are treacherous guides when they
trespass on the domains of law. Eldest is not eldest
all the world over. It is first—first simply—first in
number, not in age ; and first in number in such a
series naturally and imperceptibly becomes first in
the ordinary succession to property. So one of the
greatest lawyers that ever lived has said. And an
authority perhaps of more weight till has written
that eldest is not eldest, but most worthy. So, the
contest raged, and each side appealed to the primary
and natural meaning of the word.
But when the combatants abandoned mere verbal
criticism and betook themselves to guessing the
intentions of the testator, the contest waked fiercer,
and the arguments wilder still. Did he mean to
create a succcession to be traced from his son Charles,
--a shadowy Irish sort of succession, without any-
thing to succeed to ? To create limitations jump-
ing from great grandson to grandson, in and out,
just as these male lineal descendants might stand
as heirs to his son Charles,--heirs to one from
whom they were to inherit nothing ? Or did he
mean, when the appointed time should come, to
collect all the male lineal descendants of his son
Charles then living, and disregarding entirely their
heirship to Charles and their relationship to one
another, arrange them in order of age, and thus
select the fortunate individual from a crowd in con-
sequence of a mere accident,—the accident of being
eldest ?

Such a notion made Lord Eldon, in his own words,
"hold his hands up and exclaim Is it possible he
could have meant this ? ' And the joke has mot
lost its point yet. " Eccentric " was too mild a
term for it ; it was absurd and fantastical. The
sparkling witticisms of stage clowns were cited to
show that in the English language words may
have a metaphorical sense. The testator might as
well have selected the tallest or the youngest. Who
ever heard of a man in his senses choosing an heir
for his age ? Why, it is done every day, replied the
other side. Upon what other principle do men
deal with their sons ? Write " sons for " male
lineal descendants" in this part of thfoerw“ilslo,nasn”diynoua
have the ordinary every day settlement
fora
paropme.hritlye:
cloVmrimteon"
alnindeatiledcetehsepnrdoapnetrst;
up
. of
Nf
divisionh s
one is
male
areatl
to
tlaihnnede
lineal
uress
descendants
iit-dehaent
man's
a,ostv eNtvrheeaaltgti ne
old
h.
o
touch it before it comes to them. They are his
adopted sons. Why should he not treat them so ?
It is very simple. And there would be these three
results. First, there would be the greatest pos-
sible difficulty in encumbering the property while
it was in suspense ; secondly, the first possessor
would be a person of mature age ; and, lastly, no
one would be educated in the idea that he must
needs be the heir to all this wealth—a course of
education whioh, if the solemn warning against
ostentation mean anything, had not been attended
with the best results in the case of his real sone.
Shrewdly put, and plausibly; but the rejoinder
was plausible too. Any one would desire to have
his heir educated in a manner suitable to his future
station. If accumulation were the only object, an
infant would serve the purpose best ; and, if one or
more of his descendants should obtain a peerage,
the testator would naturally wish the property and
the title to go together, which might counterbalance
any advantage to be gained by keeping the gift
contingent and uncertain.

Such are the leading arguments on each side.
We have no intention of following them further.
Backwards and forwards for five weary days their
Lordships were taken through this will—through
" the limitation," " the presentation," "the accu-
mulations," and " the paranthesis ;" for, like a
favourite trout stream, every shallow and eddy has
received a name from those who have fished so long
whose
invaluable onee to labwlzleor:d, m
and so profitably in its pellucid waters.
How interesting
be
gatheredinvaluable services are now almost lost to his
in spite of impaired health came forth
from tliefaiettmtu that
country, b
no
country,
once more to impugn or defend the arguments Which
he had used as counsel and circulated as author
some 30 years ago; while another noble lord, whose
more recent interest in the case forbade him to
sit
as judge, sat throughout the contest a patient
and
attentive listener.
To the public at large the great interest
of the
case lies, of course, in the bitter satire it contains
upon posthumous vanity and
but beyond that it is a posthumous ambition;
ingenious mind that cannot letty
puzzle for any
its ingenuity in the manoeuvres find sufficient food for
the metamorphoses of tof the Austrians or
e Conservatives. As for a
compromise, so much
goodsense would be strangely
out of place in the history
of the affair.

WILLIAM TELL OUTDONE.—We saw a sportsman
of this city, on Saturday last, shoot an apple from the head
of a friend with a rifle. The apple was plumped neatly
through the Centre, and the young man who had made a
target of himself seemed to regard the matter as a very good
joke. By request we omit the names, but vouch for the
truth of the statement. The distance was about 15 feet, and
we were shown two apples that had been hit in the same
way previous to our arrival.—Dartford Courant.
Miss Burdett Coutts has consented to lay the first
stone of the new Cancer Hospital at Brompton, 911 Monday
next, May 30. The ceremony will take place at tour k
eßronton,
taht
on the
to
London has kind
consump-
tion Hospital, and the Lord Bishop of Lon
consented to preside.