New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1866-04-06
A Remark able VIII Case.

The Doublin Court of Probate has been en-
gagged for the past month in the examination of
what is known as the great Irish will case
The suit was instituted to establish the will and
codicil of Sir Edward Fitzgerald, Of Carrigorn in
the county Clare, by which lis personally, worth
eleven thousand pounds, was bequeathed to his
widow, Lady Fitzgerald, with remainder as to a
considerable portion, to the male descendants of
Col Fitzgerald, paternal uncle OF the testator
through the coloneIs daughter, Mrs. Couchrane.
These instruments, which were respectively dated
February, 1851 and March, 1862 were legally exc
Guted and attested: but though in all points of
form correct, Sir Augustine Fitzgerald the eldest
surviving brother of Sir Edward who had become
his heir and first next of kin on his death without
issue, lmpeached them as having been obtained by
unfair means from an incapable testatOr.
In lS47 Sir Edward, then in his forty first year.
succeeded to the title and estates having re-
ceived his education at Oxford, and having after
ward been an G1dche, during many years, at Ber
lin and Vienna. He was refined, graceful, and
accomplished gentleman, though even at the time
the continual dissipation in which he had long I'M
happily INDUCED had seriously impaired a robust
constitution. The history of his subsequent lite
down to his death, in the autumn of last year.
says the London Times, is a terrible example of
the effects OF vice in reducing a mind originally
sound to state in which its capacity to think or
form purpose, becomes questionable. Sir Ed
wards time was usually spent at Carrigon or in
visits to Dublin; and he was proved to have been
continually addicted at both places to habits of
drunkenness, which, acting on an enfeebled frame,
produced melancholy consequences. The grace
full gentleman became paralytic of wretched
aspect and filthy habits the gay attace degenera-
ted into brainless sot, an indecent talker, a
petty pilferer the trained and accomplished man
OF the world became an object Of scorn and COM
passion Stunned by his equals, expelled from
| clubs, unat for active or social life, Sir Edward
Fitzgerald, after fifty, was mere decaying wreck
In 1856, he married the widow of an Indian
officer, belonging to well known family in Ireland
| In 1850 he was visited by his brother Augustine
| and son of the latter named Austin. The young
man Austin became obnoxious to Lady Fitzgerald
mainly. it appears, because he encouraged her
husband to his excuses; and finally, in October
| 1860, she left the house. The next day. Austin
composed and published a series of pacards, con.
| tanning vulgar account "of the flight of an
elderly lady with cast in her eye," and several
of them were directed by him to Lady Fitzgerald
and. some of her relatives. Lady Fitzgerald sent
| lawyers to threaten him with criminal prosecu.
| ton for libel, and from that moment cherished @
profound aversion to the young man. Her hus
band was afterward removed to Dublin, where
during severe illness, Lady Fitzgerald succeeded
in poisoning his mind against his relatives h
finally made a will leaving all his landed estates
to her and then died. The amount at issue is
thirty thousand dollars year, and the relatives
brought suit to break the will. The court decided
| in their favor, and the will was broken on the
ground that improper influences had been brough
4 to bear upon the feeble intellect of the testator.