Star.
London, England, 1829-09-10 00:00:00

GUILDHALL

Yesterday Sir Prraa Lemma was engaged till nearly six o'clock
in a strange proceeding for a London Police Magistrate, the exe-
cution of a commission issued from the Commissary Court at
Edinburgh, to receive riso voce proof of the identity of a person
claiming to administer to the estate of the late Alexander Laing,
of Edinburgh, plomber, and return the depositions for the guid-
ance of the Court. Mr. Hindmarsh attended as Solicitor for the
claimant, and Mr. Elderton for the respondent. The commission
was addressed to the Lord Mayor or any of the Aldermen, and tho
Lord Mayor declining to act, Sir Peter Laurie was applied to. It
bad been sued oat to avoid the expense of conveying five witnesses
to and from Edinburgh, the amount claimed being only 6001.
It was explained, that the respondent was the second wife of the
deceased, and the claimant the only son of the daughter of the de-
ceased by his first wife.
If the claimant could establish his identity, he was entitled to
share the deceased's property with the widow. The claimant is a
labouring stone-sawyer, and his father, who was a brass-founder,
married the deceased's daughter while she lived as servant at a
Mr. Armstrong's factory in the neighbourhood of Shadwell.
The witnesses were sworn and purged (that is, called upon to
deny they are actuated by malice or interest in the evidence they
are about to give), according to the Scotch form.
The first, Jane Williams, of St. Bartholomew's Hospital,deposed
that she knew Thomas Samson and Janet Laing, the parents of the
young man, Thomas Samson, now pointed out to her, and heard
from her husband that be was present when they were married at
Mary-la-bonne Church. She had some of the wedding-cake. She
visited Janet about an hour after she had been delivered of the
claimant by Dr. Dunn, of Wapping-wall, since dead. She weaned
the child for the mother, who took it to Scotland when it was 11
months old, and the mother dying there, the father brought it back
when it was 18 months old. Witness then nursed the child for
a week, and had not lost sight of him since. She was positive the
claimant was the child born, as she had described, on the sth of
August, 24 years ago.

As the marriage itself was not disputed, but merely that the
claimant was the issue of the marriage, Sir Peter Laurie thought
Mrs. Williams's evidence conclusive on that point, and it was need.
less to go further.
Mr. Hindmarsh, however, called three other witnesses to the
fact ; one of whom, Ann Slater, was present at the birth, and had
known the claimant from that time to the present, and another was
equally positive as to his identity ; he had worked at the same fac-
tory with claimant's father, and had also courted Jane or J..net
Laing, and when she married his rival, he (wine..) partook of the
fines (Ss. each) paid to regale all the workmen, upon the marriage,
and upon the birth of the son and heir.
Mr. French, a ,cletk, proved that be had written a letter for
claimant, and signed claimant's name, although claimant c' old
write. It was a letter which merely requested a party in Scotland
to iequire whether the claimant's relations were then living ? lie
wrote it at the claimant's desire.
The questions put to, as well as the answers given by the wit-
nesses, were taken down, and each sheet of the depositions was
signed ►y the Commissioner, Sir Peter Laurie, and his clerk. The
evidence will be forthwith transmitted to Scotland, under the
Alderman's seal.