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

THE GREAT THELLUSSON CASE.

(From a Correspondent of the Times.)
The most famous lawsuit of modern times is near
its close_ We must soon condole with the bar Uprat
the termination of the great Thellusson will .ease,
and congratulate the successful litigant on the rel. a-
nants of a fortune which was to have endanger d
the liberties of England. The last act is all bat
over—the curtain is about to fall. A t such a
moment, only the other day a correspondent in T
columns suggested a compromise. So Mr. Pea :e
interposed between Russia and England, and wi+ h
might as well talk 3f
g
ganreeaqtu
Thellusson
elobssaobnileiat3B-e
you
of success. Compromise tl
settling the Derby, or compromising a fight ler
the championship. The great Thellusson c
18e Nr;
meant to be fought out. Besides, what would ti
lawyers say ? Time out of mind Chancellors miel
Judges, with watering mouths and itching hand ;
have clutched at the tempting prize till it has fare d
with it as it often fares with some precocious fm .t
within reach of impatient fingers—squeezed and
pinched before it is ripe, its shrivelled form seer:B
the ghost of what it might have been, while bla.(A
and ugly finger-marks make it hard to say whi, t
manner of fruit it originally was. So it has bee .1
with this will. The great difficulty appears to lie
to divine the testator's intention amid the prem..
Lure squcezings and pinches of judicial commer-
tators, while the property in dispute is now n
bigger than it was 60 years ago.
Sixty years ago there died in England a Frenflt
refugee named Peter Thellusson. He had heel! ,t
merchant in Paris, and he afterwards carried on t;Ile
same business in London. The world had prospered
with him. He was enormously wealthy. He him-
self gracefully attributes his wealth to industry-and
integrity ; his friends ascribed it to less laborion4
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 Legislatnrc 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 son s
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 foundel
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 queition.
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 arc both of them male
lineal descendants—one as much so as the other.
But which is the eldest now living I' One is first in
age, the other is the heir in tail male of Charles
'Thellusson.

Our reader., may perhaps remember Sir Roger
Seratcherd's defence of his will in Mr. 'frollopc'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 -au
authority perhaps of more weight t'll has written
that eldest is not eldest, but most worthy. SO, tho
contest raged, and each side appealed to the primary
and natural meaning of the word.
But when the combatants abandoned mere verbal.
criticism I:nd betook themselves to guessing the
intentions of the testator, the contest Waked fiercer,
and the arguments wilder still. Did he mean to
create a succecssion 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 front
wham they were to inherit. nothing ? Or did he
mean,'when the appointed time should come, to
collect ail the male lineal descendants of his son
Charles then living, and disregarding entirely their
heirship to Charles and their relationship to ono
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 'ls it possible he
could have meant this ? ' And the joke has xot
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 niotapLorical 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

tshoen "sons"
will,f o for
n"dinyaolun
_
ldienaelalwdietshee. theirid nits" i sons
ins
have the ordinary every day settlement of property.
ial)Pt hisW partri-it e
of "
Write "male lineal descendants" for "sons" in a
common will, and tic the property up for a while.
and you have this will over again. These malki
lineal descendants living at the time of division aro
the heirs to the old man's wealth. No one is to
touch it before it comes to them. They are his
adopted sous. 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, 11,0
one would be educated in the idea that he must
needs be the heir to all this wealth—a course of
i education which, if the solemn warning against
ostentation mean anything, had not been attended
with the best results in the case of his real sons.
Shrewdly 'put, and plausibly; but the rejoinder
was plausible too. Any one would desire to havo
his heir educated in a manner suitable to his future
station. If accumulation were the only object, art
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 gilt
contingent and uncertain.
We have no intention of following themd t
Such are the leading arguments on each side.hel
Backwards and forwards for five wear} dais
Lordships were taken through thisiw,i
"the lituitatlon " "the presenthaetslio.s/ ,:, " the
for, like a
accu-
mulations," .an'cl. " the parant
those who have fishedsolong
received a name from
llucid waters.
and so profitably
favourite trout stream, every shallow*and eddy has
mustthat one noble lord, whoso
gathered from the fact
are now almost lost to his
services
invaluable
of impaired health came forth
or defend the arguments which
How interesting itttspellucid
be to lawyers may bo
country, in spite
counsel and circulated
as author
used as
some 30 years ago,. • while another noble lord, whose
recent interest in the case forbade him to sit
more
honecheamdore to impugn
as ju,ge, Acat 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 posthumons ambition;
but beyond that it is a pretty puzzle for any
ingenious mind that cannot find sufficient food fer
its ingenuity in the manoeuvres of the Austrians or
the metarrmrplioses of the Conservatives. As!for a

compronnse, so much good sense Would be strangely
out of place in the, history of the affair.

WILLIAM TELL OUTDONE.—We saw a sportsma -1
of this city, on Saturday last, shoot an apple from the heel
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 15feet, and
we were shown two apples that had been hit in the sane
way previous 'to our arrival.—Hartford Courant. ~s,_
Miss Burdett Coutts has consented to lay the first
of the new Cancer Hospital at Brorup ,!?
next, May 30. The ceremony will take
on the rounds of the proposed new buiat B
id g rompton,
situate in the Fulham-road, nearly opposite lto the - '
consular-
.ph!ncet°arit tenur o'clocl
raensdidet.he I,crlßislrop io f London has kind
consented ellutest to

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.—Messrs. BRADBURY
and EVANS beg to state that their connection with
HOUSEHOLD WORDS will cease from and after the 28th
tut., and that on Saturday, the 2d July, they will commence
anew Weekly Illustrated Periodical, to be called

"ONCE A WEEK."
An communications for the Editor to be addressed to No.
11, I/merle-street, London, E.C.

In a few Days, Bvo,
NOTES ON THE DEFENCES OF GREAT
BRITAIN AND IRELAND AGAINST FOREIGN
INVASlON—embracing the only General and Systematic
Plan for the Permanent Protection of this Country.
By LIEUT.-GENERAL SHAW KENNEDY, C. 8.,
Colonel 47th Regt.
John Murray, Albemarle-street.

ROYAL PRINCESS'S THEATRE.
Under the afanagement of Hr. Charles Kean
THIS EVENING will bepresented Shakspeare's historical
play of KING HENRY V.
King Henry V., Mr. C. Kean ; Chorus, Mrs. C. Kean.

THEATRE-ROYAL, HAYMARKET.
Lessee, Mr. J. B. Buckstone.
' THIS EVENING will be performed the new and original
Comedy, entitled THE WORLD AND THE STAGE. The
characters by Messrs. Compton, Buckstone, Howe, W. Far-
yen, Rogers; Miss Amy Sedgwick, &c.
After which, a new Classical Extravaganza, entitled
ELECTRA IN A NEW ELECTR'IC LIGHT. Messrs
Wright,
Compton, Braid, Clark, Mrs. Wilkins, Misses FanilY
Eliza Weekes, and Louisa Loclercq.
And A DAUGHTER TO MARRY.