The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-03-25
MRS. PARNELL SETTLES.
End Of the Wood Will Contest, Involv
ing 81 900, 900 of Property.

=
LONDON, March 24-The hearing of the
Wood will case in the probate court was
to have commenced this morning. Mrs.
Wood, testatriX, died some wears ago,
leaving fortune of about 81, 0O0, 900 to her
niece, then Mrs. O'Shea, now widow of
Charles Stewart Parnell. The other nieces
and nephew of Sir Evelyn Wood brought
suit to have the will set aside, on the
ground of undue influence. When the
court assembled Sir Charles Russell, coun-
sci for Mrs. Parnell, announced that the
case had been settled by family arrange
ment. 1t is believed that Mrs. Parnell has
consented to relinquish to the seven
claimants a considerable share of her in
heritance.
THE above case has been one that attracted
great attention and caused much speculation as
to its outcome as 1t involved in litigation the
widow of the famous Irish leader in parliament
and because there were some sensational fea-
lures connected with it. Although counsel in
the case had been brsfed at q cost of $4,000, in
anticl patton Of long legal struggle, yet it was
rumored month ago that q settlement would
be arrived at. Tho counsel chosen, curiously,
reproduced the famous Parnell commission.
Sir Charles Russell was for the plaintiff, while
Attorney General Webster was for the Woods
Sir Henry James was for Mrs. Steele. The only
difference 10 that George Lewis was not in the
case. 1t is said this occurred because he had
such violent and prolonged labor to get his
tenth OF the $4,000 damages he won for ParneIl
from the London Times that he refused all
further dealings with the family. Old Mrs
Wood, whose fortune Of 81 900 GOD was in dis
pute, was q weirdly eccentric character, and in
her latest years grew blind, deaf, and quite
silly. She never read newspapers or any books
save the Bible and the classical poets Her
servants were compelled to memorize verses
from these and recite them daily in her pres
ence. She drove out once day in her broug-
ham with drawn blinds. One of her favorits
occupations was to draw wills. There is
whole series of these. The earliest, made in
1S47. is filled with quotations from the Greek
Testament and the poets. In the first of these
she devised her property in an equitable way.
Gradually, as her niece Kitty grew up from
girihood, they show changes increasingly in her
faver; the last of all, every line of whice save
the feebly-scrawled signature Is in Mrs. Par
nell's writing, left to the latter everything.
The story of the wonderful sustained fight
she made TO keep her brothers and Skaters from
getting at their aunt rivals one OF Wilkie Col.
Inns plots They averred that the most aston
ishing devices were resorted to for this purpose
One sister. Lady Leonard, declares that on one
occasion, when she managed to obtain access to
her aunt, she found the old woman had been
kept under the impression for some years that
Der nephew, Sir Evelyn Wood, had been killed
in Zuiuland. About this time-that is, four
years ago-Sir Evelyn applied for a commission
in lunacy for his aunt. This application reached
her in a form which thereafter made it easy for
Mrs. O'shea to keep the whole brood of relatives
at q distance while she lived at Ethan
close to her aunt. The spectacle Of Oshea
in the background watching and waiting gives
the thing an intensely dramatic touch. Once, it
seems, a runor Of the Parnen scandal in some
way got to the old lady, who was Puritan of
the grinmest type. But it Is alleged that she
was told and convinced that it related to one of
her other nieces. Although Sir Evelyn and six
brothers and sisters were claimants, the peculi-
arites OF the English law make the person de-
sirous Of proving will the plaintiff. Hence
Mrs Parnell occupied this position, while Sir
Evelyn and five others were defendants, with
another sister, Mrs. Steele. as intervenor The
charge was lunacy and undue influenced