The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1898-06-22
UNAPPRECIATED TALENT.
NEWSPAPER ARTICLE CAUSES
LOSS OF A WILL CASE.
A Prominent Kansas.City Lawyer Tells
How the Imaginary Powers of a
Newspaper Reporter Defeated
Him in a Case atECamilla.

Newspaper Reporter Defeated
Him in a Case atECamilla.
"About ten years ago" said Judge H..
G. McD0ugal, the well-knOwn Kansas
City lawyer, to a reporter of the Wash
ington Post, 81 went down to the little
town of Camilla, Ga, to act as counsel
in an important will case. A leading
citizen had = died, leaving an estate
worth many thousands of dollars He
died without leaving a written will, but
it seems that in Georgia the old George
III law, as to nuncupative, wills, is still
in force, and under it a woman who
claimed to be his widow asserted her
right to all the plantations ard town
property of the deceased. Everybody
supposed she had been in realty the wife
of the dead man. Years before | had
known the deceased in Missouri for he
had lived in that state before settling IN
the south He did not live happily
with his wife, and | was employed by
her to get divorce, which was granted
by the court.
snow, when this mans death became
known to his former wife's children,
they employed me to look after their in
terests as his rightful heirs, for they did
not believe their father had ever been
married TO the Georgia woman. On
reaching the scene it did not take me
long to become thoroughly convinced
that the couple had never been married,
but that she had lived with the deceased
as his mistress. The case came to trial,
and at last the woman herself was put
on the witness stands
"For some time | asked her about
matters of a rather immaterial charac-
ter She seemed bit nervous, and
when finally / began pouring in ques-
tious that she bad evidently not count
ed on, her nervousness increased visibly,
and her replies were Of a confused and
contradictory nature. She got badly
tangled up as to the place where the al
legged marriage ceremony took place, ana
the fact that she was telling a false story
all the way through became apparent to
everybody.
'When | taxed her with fasehood. J
the climax came, and she fell to the
floor in dead faint | knew that set
tied the matter in our favor, and it did, |
for the judge decided that my clients !
were the rightful heffs. Now comes i
the odd part of the affair. After max
ing hard fight and winning my case.
it seemed the irony of fate that a news
paper reporter, without the slightest in
tention of doing me or my clients any
harm, absolutely upset all our work, cut
the people l represented out of their
fathers estate, and me out of a fat fee. |
The case, as might be imagined, was |
highly sensational case, full Of dramat- |
ic features and peculiar incidents. 1t |
had aroused intense interest, and an At |
lanJa newspaper had special CORE |
spOndent to report the trial. You may |
be sure this reporter did the subject full |
justice. When he came to describing |
the fainting scene in the courtroom his |
word-painting was weird and wonder |
full. The account took up several col |
umDs, and 1T really was an intensely
readable production. Well, that story
made dough out of cake, sure enough,
tor it was copied all over the United
States, and appeared, among others, in a
Detroit newspaper.
Many years ago tie man for whose
property we had been contending lived
in Michigan, Here he had a wife and
child, whom he left to enter the ar my,
and to whom he never returned. The
Michigan wife supposed him dead, and
the child grew to manhood with that
belief, But the reproduction of the
Atlanta spondent's thrilling nara
tive revealed the entire life.story of the
unfeeing wretch who had abandoned
his wife and babe. The rest is easy t.
guess; the marriage to the Missouri wo-
man was illegal, therefore, the children
were illegitimate, and could not right
fully hold the estate against the claim of
the legitimate heir in Michigan. The
latter went into court, proved his rela-
tionship to the deceased, and was award
ed all the property. He would, in all
probability, never have heard of his
fathers death had that young newspaper
fellow written plain, unvarnished tale,
instead of a narrowing description that
caused other papers to reprint it.
''It was by the veriest scratch that the
person who was really entitled to the
property got IT. and | have always
thought he should have "divied'' with
the brilliant newspaper man"