The Sun.
London, England, 1859-03-21 00:00:00

PRIMOGENITURE AND REFORM,

(From the Dispatch.)
The first principle of the law ought to be the
equality of subjects before it. From all allegiance
is equally claimed—to all justice is equally due. It
may be in strict pursuance of that principle that it
should be recognised as the right of every man to
do what he likes with his own, or to do what is
even morally. questionable, because liberty of choice
is his social right ; but wherever the law itself is
called in as the arbiter, wherever the State itself
speaks as the aggregate of the moral sense of the
nation, there should the utterance be truth and jus-
tice without fear or favour, there should it demon •
strate to all its subjects that it is " too fond of the
right to adopt the expedient." What is an elder
son to this State more than a younger ? Is not
a girl its subject as well as a boy ? Why,
then, should the public law be made the tool of a
class, and an instrument of disinheritism ? There is
not a country in Europe that retains our law of pri-
mogeniture. Entail,: are sennted in the jurispru-
dence of every kingdom out of England. The lean-
ing of our law has been uniformly against them,
and they have bean retained in our courts only by
the compulsion of our legislators. Nay, the very
principle of family preferences is condemned by our
own policy, except in one direction. Should aßoths-
child leave his millions in the funds, the eldest son,
in case of intestacy, takes no more than his youngest
daughter. Should the owner of riches "beyond the
fancy of human avarice" die a bachelor, the legion
of his next in kin would all participate alike.
But because a man by accident has happened to
invest his money in land in place of Consols,
to add field to field and house to house where
another preferred five per cent. in railways, or 20
in bank shares, it pleases our wiseacres to hold that
he should leave his younger children destitute, and
to make a golden calf of the fool of the family.
We are told, indeed, that the squire may make a
will. We are asked why the man who wants to
leave all to his eldest son should be forced to sign a
testamentary deed, in place of requiring him who is
for an equal division to do so ? It were easy to
retort the question, " What's sauce for the goose is
sauce for the gander." But to our apprehension
the distinction is very plain. If a man wants to
disinherit his children, let the act be his own, not
thatl before the law is the
p latterfor all its subjects. The
ain o f g
. State., foie
latter
Tr.;-g Lears of society should be made to do their
own dirty work. The man who, in the language
of Scripture, seeks "to turn him away from his own
flesh," should not be suffered to cheat his conscience
out of the sense of its duties and responsibilities, by
getting society to become the scapegoat of his
whimsical partialities and capricious dislikes. Let
the law force a freeholder to make a will if he de-
sires to rob his children, and how seldom will even'
a rogue make a will ?
There are tens of thousands of ignorant men in
this country who have no conception whatever of
the operation of the law in reference to succession.
There are very many who are too indolent and too
procrastinating to make a will, who even grudge
the mere expense, but who would never voluntarily
by positive act give their whole realty to one child.
Their property passes to the heir by sheer default;
they either do not know the effect of the law, or
they are too lazy to obviate its inequalities by any
decision of their own.
The true policy of the State in this regard is very
clear. If it is to make a will where its subjects
make none, it should be that which a wise and good
man would make for himself. We have an order
of nobility—an order of gentry—a territorial aris-
tocracy. 'lt is considered by our statesmen (?) to
be highly politic to encourage the accumulation of
great estates—to discountenance division of land as
much as possible. Well, bas the State a right-to
adopt such a system in defiance of the cries of nature,
and the dictates of equal justice ? Is it wise for a
State any more than for an individual to do evil
that good may come ? Can a publicist legitimately
take up the position that what is morally wrong
may be politically rignt ; mat it ever can ne tne
true policy of a nation to do that as an aggregated
corporation which is opposed to the plain obliga-
tions of its individual subjects ? If it be wise, in
the proper acceptation of that term, for a State to
encourage its subjects to disinherit their children,
then clearly it is the duty of those subjects to do it
themselves. Has any father of a family a right to
say :—" The ruin of my daughters is for the advan
tage of the country, therefore let them be ruined ?"
Did society exist before the family ? Is not the
family the first community, the very elementary
principle of society itself? Is there any responsi-
bility in the world paramount to that which a man
owes to those whom he himself has called into
being, and for whose happiness to the extent of his
ability he is plainly accountable? When the ques-
tion is plainly put before the reason and the unso-
phisticated conscience of the husband and the father,
there is no hesitation in the answer. When a parent
is asked to leave his girls in beggary, that England
may sustain its order of Peers, the most conserva-
tive of us begin to think that the cost of sacrifice is
far beyond the return. A Minister now in office
has indeed propounded the sentiment—
" Let laws and learning, trade and commerce die,
But spare us still our old nobility."
Lord John Manners himself is ashamed of. the sen-
timent, but it reigns with all its original spirit in
the minds of the defenders of the policy of primo-
geniture.
We have argued the question of the morality and
justice of the law as opposed to its policy, but in
truth they are not antagonistic—they cannot 136 in
opposition. All truth is harmonious ; there is
nothing contradictory in justice ; nothing ail be
expedient which is not right. A knave is but a fool
with a circumbendibus. Honesty is the best policy.
When we would know what is wise, the conscience
has given us a short cut to it. Our instincts were
given us, our moral intuitions, to be the substitutes
for reason and for wisdom. Out of the mouths of
babes and sucklings has God perfected his praise;
because the dictates of their pure and innocent
moral impulses lead to the very conclusions which
worldly wisdom and philosophy also arrive at by
painful elaboration and anxious deduction. The
State policy of primogeniture is as unsound as its
morality is questionable.
We have never advocated the compulsory subdi-
vision of land or realty. If the owner, by deed,
directs it to be cumulated, let him. In a country
such as This, no stimulus is required to the tendency
to accumulation. Where fortunes of a plum are
common, and millionaires may be counted by the
dozen, there will always be large estates in suffi-
cient number for any purposes of the maintenance
of a territorial aristocracy. So long as these estates
are wisely held by the prudent, the virtuous, by
social benefactors, they will remain in the family.
But land is not a mere benefice. God's earth is a
solemn trust committed to the holder for the good
of all. Whenever, therefore, the proprietor becomes
unworthy—whenever he misuses his property to the
prejudice of the community—it naturally passes
from him into more frugal and intelligent hands,
unless the order of Providence be thwarted by the
folly of man, in adopting the. policy of primogeni-
ture. Guizot dates the progress of England from the
period of the division and sale of the Church lands
among the people. Family pfide and the law
of primogeniture ruined Ireland ruined the
very persons sought to be benefited by the
policy. The Encumbered Estates Courts, which
are really a device for ridding the country of
the evils of the law of intestacy—which have thrown
huge properties in subdivided parcels, upon the
market=which have dispersed the accumulations
of ages, and practically repealed the law of primo-
geniture—are the very source and centre of the
regeneration of Ireland. They have encouraged a
resident yeomanry in the room of lordly absentees
or spendthrift outlaws and refugee heirs ; they have
called small capitalists to colonise the soil and to
form a resident middle class ; they have, in a word,
converted Ireland from turbulent discontent and
squalid misery to reverence for the law, social order,
and high material prosperity. It is no hazardous pre:
diction to prophesy that, in a few years, the Pope's
brass band will have as little place in Ireland as in
Exeter, and that a constituency will spring into
being whose intelligence and independence will
render them the safest depositories of political
power that true statesmanship could desire.
Do these facts suggest to the reader the political
moral we would apply to them ? It is not our pur-
pose at this time to discuss the question of the
comparative merits of large or small holdings. We
reserve for a calmer time the consideration of the
philosophy of the economics of the subject. What
in this connection it is important to keep in view is
the relation Which the theory of primogeniture

MIDLAND CIRCUIT.—DERBY, March 19.
CROWN COURT.
(Before Mr. Justice Erle.)
Samuel Saunders was charged/with shooting, on
Nov. 13,'at Job Ashton, with intent to kill him.
Mr. Adams conducted the prosecution ; Mr.
Flood defended the prisoner.
Job Ashton, a keeper, was out with Lynam,
another keeper, about 5 p.m on Saturday, Novem-
ber the 13th, in some land of Mr. Hurt, his mas-
ter, when he saw two men on Mr. Hurt's land
carrying guns. The keepers had neither guns nor
dogs, but they followed Saunders and his com-
panion by the side of the turnpike-road, when the
prisoner, who was only two yards in advance of
thorn tnrnoa remnri ~-,a
"4. A oh_
ton's legs. Ashton started on one side and was not
struck by any shot, although the gun was loaded,
as appeared by many shots having penetrated the
ground.
Mr. Flood addressed the jury, and the learned
judge having summed up, they returnee a verdict
of not guilty.
Hong Kong, a Chinese, described as a sailor,
stood charged with the manslaughter of William
Camomile.
Mr. O'Brien conducted the prosecution, and Mr.
Flowers defended the prisoner.
No jury de nzedietate lingua being desired by the
prisoner's counsel,
Mr. O'Brien stated the case and called witnesses,
who proved the following facts :—A man named
Collins and his wife had met the prisoner in York,
and the three travelled in company, making money
b,y the prisoner's singing, up to February 25. They
came to Chesterfield, and were going very peaceably
through the streets. Hong Kong singing as usual
when the deceased, a young blacksmith, who was
intoxicated and happened to be among those around
him, struck the prisoner, took him by the hair of
his head, and pulled him about. Both the prisoner
and the deceased then took off their coats, and a
fight began, which lasted some two minutes. More
than one of the bystanders endeavoured to persuade
the deceased man to forbear teasing, and when
there was a pause in the fight tried to pull him
away. The deceased swore that he would knock
the prisoner's head off, and on this some one in the
crowd said to the prisoner,- " If I was you, I'd
murder him." Upon that the prisoner took from a
bag a knife which the day before he had borrowed
from Collins, ran at the deceased, and inflicted a
wound upon the side of his abdomen, from which
the bowels protruded, and from the effects of which
he died,
Mr. Flowers addressed the jury for the prisoner,
contending that he was, as it would seem, under
apprehension that his own life was in danger, and
that the blow was necessary for his self-defence.
The learned judge having summed up,
The jury returned a verdict of guilty.
Sentence was deferred until Monday morning.
Mr. Sergeant Hayes sat this afternoon in the
grand jury room, and tried prisoners.

NISI PRIUS COURT.
(Before Lord Campbell and a Special Jury.)
WELCH V. BRITTLEBANK.
This was an action for assault, in which Mr.
Macaulay and Mr. O'Brien appeared for the plain-
tiff; and Mr. Mellor and Mr. Bell for the defen-
dant.

The plaintiff was a young man, and an attorney
and magistrate's clerk at Ashbourne, and the de-
fendant was an attorney at the same place. The
plaintiff proved that on the 31st of January last he
had taken a small quantity of wine with a friend
of his, Mr. Fox, and on plaintiff's way home defen-
dant asked him to go to the Crown Inn, at Ash-
bourne, which he did, and there be found a Mr.
Archer with the defendant, and a conversation then
arose relative to a letter Archer had received from
the secretary of the North Staffordshire Railway,
charging Archer with having travelled with an
improper ticket. The plaintiff advised that Archer
should pay the additional fare, but the defendant
thought otherwise. Archer was the client of the
defendant. The plaintiff stated that the defendant
then 'said he would have nothing more to do with
the case, and that he would hand the case over to
plaintiff. Plaintiff said he• did not wish to inter-
fere, and there was no occasion for the defendant
to be piqued. Defendant said he was not. Plaintiff
said, " Well, if you are not, your conduct is like

hat of an insane person." Defendant went out o

the room and returned, and then placed himself
before the plaintiff and said, " You called me a liar."
Plaintiff said he never did. Defendant said the
plaintiff was a liar. The defendant then struck the
plaintiff two blows on the head, which caused
blood to flow from one of his ears. Defendant also
kicked and stamped on plaintiff's hat. It appeared
that the plaintiff was perfectly sober from the
evidence of several witnesses who were called,
who saw him on the night in question
fter the assault. On the part of the de-
fendant he was called with other witnesses;
and proved that they were at the Crown, and that
words ensued between the plaintiff and the defen-
dant, and that the plaintiff called the defendant a
liar, whereupon the defendant said, "If you call
me a liar, you must take the consequences. That
the defendant went out of the room, and on his
return the plaintiff still persisted in calling him a
liar, when the defentant struck him as charged by
the plaintiff. .
The learned judge haying summed up the case

WESTERN CIRCUIT.—EXETER, March 19.
NISI PRIUS COURT.
:Before Mr. Justice Crowder and a Special Jury.)
GILLIIAM V. NEWTON.
Mr. Montague Smith and Mr. Coleridge Were for
the plaintiff, and Mr. Collier, Mr. Kingdon, and
Mr. Turner for the defendant.
This was an issue directed by the Court of Chan-
cery to try whether a will purporting to have been
made by Mrs. Elizabeth Newton on the 7th of
January, 1857, was the last will and testament of
Mrs Newton. The plaintiff was the nephew of
Mrs. Newton, and the defendant, John Newton,
was her husband. It appeared that Mrs. Newton
married the defendant in 1829. She had some
property which was settled on her, but she reserved
to herself the power of disposing of it by will, and
she immediately afterwards made her will, dated
in August, 1829, by which she devised the whole
of her property to her husband, the defendant. It
seemed, however, that the marriage was an un-
happy oue. They raised a sum of money on mort-
gage and built an inn, which they kept, and the
husband took to drinking and profligate company,
and this led to misery and ruin, and the husband
was obliged to take the benefit of the Insolvent
Act. According to the plaintiff's case the wife
determined to make another will, declaring that
her husband should not spend all her money, but
that her own family should have it. A Mr, Par-
rott, of Totness had been Mrs. Newton's solicitor,
and in the month of January, 1857, her husband
having gone to Exeter for two or three days to at-
tend on a jury, Mrs. Newton sent for Mr. Parrott
and told him she wished to make a new will and
gave him instructions to prepare one, desiring him
to bring it the next day, so that she might execute
it before her husband's return from Exeter. Mr.
Parrott having taken the instructions went home
and prepared the will, and the next day he took it
to Mrs. Newton. There then arose a question
about witnesses to the will, as she did not wish any
one in the house to know anything about it, as she
feared her husband. She suggested that Mrs. Par-
rott should be a witness, but as she was ill her sis-
ter, Miss Rowland, was brought for that purpose.
Mrs. Newton was an illiterate woman and could not
write her name, Mr. Parrott told her to make a
cross, but she said she had crosses enough through
life and she would not make one, but would make a
mark like her mother did, and she accordingly put
the letter A, and the witnesses put their names to
the attestation. By the will she gave a small part
of the property to her husband, the defendant,
but the greater part to her nephew, the plaintiff, and to her niece and other relatives. After the
execution of the will she desired Mr. Parrot to take
the will home with him, saying that if she had it in
her house her husband would destroy it. Mr. Par-
rott accordingly took it home. Mrs. Newton was
soon afterwards taken ill. She told her husband
not to have her will read till after the funeral, as if
he did he would kick her coffin out of doors. She
died on the 20th of March, 1857. The funeral took
place on the 25th of March, and after that Mr.
Parrott told Newton of the will. Newton became
much excited, and at last he pulled off his coat, put
himself in a fighting attitude, and drove Mr. Par-
rott out of the house. Subsequently to this a will
was produced by the defendant, by which the whole
of the property was given to the defendant. This
will was dated two days before the death of Mrs.
Newton. The question was, which of these wills
was a genuine one, the defendant's case being that
this last was genuine.
Many witnesses were examined on both sides,
the defendant and the witnesses to the last will
swearing most positively as to its execution. On
the plaintiff's side the witnesses swore tliat the de-
fendant was always drunk, and lived on bad terms
with his wife, while many persons were called by
the defendant, and swore that he never
most happily
and that the husband and wife lived most happily
together.
After hearing the defendant's evidence,
jury said they Were
The prepared to giye their