Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1889-01-17
MR.. NELSON'S WILL.
By b. RIDER HAGGARD.

By h. RIDER HAGGARD.
"And now I will come TO the second
point. Is the evidence of Miss Smithers
to be believed? First, let US see where it
Is corroborated. 1t is clear, from the testi-
| mony of Lady Holmhurst, that when on
| board the Inflated kangaroo, Miss Smith
ers had no tattoo marks upon her Shout
! ders. 1t is equally clear, from the I'M
| shaken testimony of Mrs. Thomas, that
when she was rescued by the American
whaler her back was marked with tattoo
| ing, then in the healing stage-with tat
tooing which could not possibly have been
| inflicted by herself or by the child, who
was her sole living companion. 1t is also
! proved that there was seen upon the is
land by Mrs. Thomas the dead body of a
man, which she was informed was that of
Mr.. Meeson, and which she here in court
| identified by means of photograph. Also,
this sans witness produced a shell which
she picked up in one of the huts, said to
be the shell used by the sailors to drink
| the rum that led to their destruction; and
she swore that she saw sailors hat lying
on the shore. Now, all this is corrobora-
l
spised Indeed, as to one point, that of the
| approximate date of the execution of the
| tattooing, it is to my mind final Still,
| there does remain an enormous amount
| that must be accepted or not according as
| to whether or not credence can be placed
| in the unsupported testimony of Miss
| Smithers, for we cannot call on a child so
| young as the present Lord Hoinlhurst &c
hlo wit fv1o ~ &c
Smithers, for instance, is not speaking the
| truth when she declares that the signature
/ of the testator was tattooed upon her back
| under his immediate direction, or that il
| was tattooed in the presence of the two
Cailors, Butt and Jones, whose signatures
were also tattooed in the presence of the
| testator and of each other, no will at all
was executed, and the plaintiffs case col,
| lapses utterly, since, from the very nature
IF the facts, evidence as to handwriting
would, of course, be useless. Now, l APP
proach the decision of this point after anx.
| fous thought and some hesitation. 1t is
not light thing to set aside a formally
! executed document such as the will OF
! Nov. 10, upon which the defendants rely,
| and to entirely alter the devolution of a
vast amount of property upon the unsup
| ported testimony of a single witness. It
| seems to me, however, that there are two
| tests which the Court can more or less set
| up as standards, wherewith to measure
| the truth of the matter. The first of these
Is the accepted probability of the action OF
an individual under any given set of cir
! cumstances, as drawn from our common
| knowledge of human nature; and second,
| the behavior and tone of the witness, both
| in the box and in the course of circum,
| stances that led to her appearance there.
| | will take the last of those two first, and
| may as well state, without further de-
| lay, that I am convinced of the truth Of
| the story told by Miss Smithers. 1t would
| to my mind be impossible for any man.
whose intelligence had been trained by
years of experience in this and other
| courts, and whose daily duty it is to dis
! criminate as to the credibility of testimony,
| to disbelieve the history so circumstantial-
| ly detailed in the box by Miss Smithers.
| (Sensation.) | watched her demeanor both
| under examination and cross-exanlination
| very closely indeed, and | am convinced
| that she was telling the absolute truth so
| far as she knew it.
And now to come to the second point.
| 1t has been suggested, as throwing doubt
| upon Miss Smithers' story, that the exist
ence of an engagement to marry, between
her and the plaintiff, may have prompted
her to concOct mOnStrOus fraud for his
benefit; and this is suggested although at
the time of the execution of the tattooine
no such engagement did, as a matter of
fact, exist, or was within measurable dis.
| tance of the narties. 1t did not exist, said
the Attorney-General; but the disposing
| mind eXisted-in other words, that she
was then in love'-if, notwithstanding
Mr.. Attorneys difficulty in defining it. I
may use the term-with the plaintiff. This
may or may not have been the case There
| are some things which it is quite beyond
the power of any judge or jury to decide,
and one of them certainly is, at what eX
act period of her acquaintance with flu
ture husband a young lady's regard turns
into a warmer feeling. But supposing
that the Attorney General is right, and
that although she at that moment clearly
had no prospect of marrying him, since
she had left England to seek her fortune
at the Antipodes, and plaintiff was looked
upon by this lady with that kind of regard
which is supposed to precede the matri
monial contract, the circumstance, in my
mind, tells rather in his favor than against
him. For in passing may remark that
this young lady has done a thing which is,
| in il way, little short of heroic; the more
so, because it has a ludicrous side She
has submitted to an operation which must
not only have been painful, but which is
and always will be blot upon her beauty.
am inclined to agree with the Attorney
General when he says that she did not
make this sacrifice without a motive.
which may have sprung from keen sense
of justice, and of gratitude to the plaintiff
for his interference on her behalf, or from
a warmer feeling. In either case there is
nothing discreditable about it-rather the
reverse, in fact; and, taken by ITSELF there
is certainly nothing here to cause me to
disbelieve the evidence Of Miss Smithers
zone question only seems to me to re-
main. Is there anything to show that the
testator was not, at the time of the eXecu-
ton of the will, of sound and disposing
mind?-and is there anything in his con-
duct or history to render the hypothesis OF
his having executed this will SO improba
BILE that the Court should take the i'm
| probability into account? AS to the first
point, can find nothing. Miss Smithers
expressly swore that it was not the case:
nor was her statement shaken by a very
searching cross-examination. She admit
ted, indeed, that shortly before death he
wandered in his mind, and thought that
he was surrounded by the shades of authors
waiting to be revenged upon him. But it
Is no uncommon thing for the mind thus
TO fail at the last, and it is not eXtraordin-
airy that this dying man should conjure
before his brain the shapes of those with
some of whom he appears to have dealt
harshly during his life. Nor do consider
l