Year: 1871

The Taylor VIII Case-CIosing Proceed
On Thursday last, the twenty day of
the trial, the last of the witnesses summoned
70 give testimony in the Taylor will case
appeared on the stand, and, with the usual
formal words of the interrogating counsel,
THAT will do, sir" the case for and again st
the disputed will closed. The mass Of testi-
mony taken during those twenty mine days Of
actual sessions of the court is enormous. The
able counsel to whom was entrusted the task
OF eliciting from the witnesses on the side OF
the proponents every word, act or incident
in proof, or tending to throw the minutest
CLEAN of light on the genuineness of the will,
of course omitted nothing that could possibly
be favorably construed in support of his view
OF the case. Counsel on the other side, who
had made himself thoroughly master and con-
hdent OF every incident in the home life of the
parties-before the marriage and after-when
disappointments and regrets had, as alleged,
usurped the place of affection and fond antici-
pations-he too, certainly made the best pro-
fessional use possible of the material at his
hand to upset the will.


| During the twenty nine days of session
forty four witnesses were summoned, called
and examined. Here was chance for a
coincidence, and the coincidence actually
occurred, that twenty-five witnesses were ex-
amlned on either side, making the whole forty
four. In a legislative view this would be a
tie, and the presiding officer by his casting
vote would determine to which side the scale
should preponderate. But it is not to the
number of witnesses that justice adheres but
to the weight of testimony, so that in the eye
of the law witness or any number of wit
nesses only count according to the value OF
the testimony which one or all can give. Sur
rogate Hutchings, presiding, was scarcely
elected to the bench of the Surrogate's Court
when his term of Office was inaugurated by
disputed will cases of very grave and impor-
tant character. For instance, the Alexander
and Fox will cases, which came up
before him almost on the moment
OF his assumption of the Office. The
Alexander case excited almost universe
public interest," and the mystery interviewer
Herewith was only finally dispelled through
the searching examination permitted, en-
| couraged and sustained by Mr.. Hutch
| ings' rulings as Surrogate, and which
resulted in the contestant--the daughter of
the deceased-Mrs. Burke, recovering large
amount Of the property which had been fraudu-
lently alienated from her. But the Taylor
domestic drama" has certainly no parallel
of late years in the testamentary jurisprudence
Of our country. The whole of the inner family
life exhibited through all the evidence of the
witnesses, who, like Wilkie Collins charac-
ters, "tell their own stores," furnishes test-
mony upon which the most sceptical or the
most credulous, on one side or the other, may
be excused if they waver and fail to Judge
at once into which scale, like Manlius,
they are to throw the sword A careful
| perusal Of the main points of the
testimony is all-important to the issue.
We have before spoken of the little reliance
that can be placed on expert testimony.
and, in case in point referred to at the
| time, proved the utter worthlessness of all
such testimony and yet, as admitted by
counsel and his clients, this is the class Of





testimony upon which their cause mainly
depends.


| The stress laid by counsel upon the deep and
lifelong affection of the deceased for his
granddaughter, with his frequent illusions as
to the certainty Of her being his sole legatee,
combated on the other hand by the facts tes-
tilted to Of the estrangement of those affe ctions
in consequence of Kate's unacceptable mar
riage, and the bitterness and unpleasantness
following thereon, are more within the pro-
vince of counsel for discussion and Of the
Surrogate to rule upon than of newspaper
article. And here we dismiss the case for the
present, assured that the summing up of coun-
sci on either side will be worthy Of the inter-
est which the case has heretofore excited and
that the decision of Surrogate Hutchings will
be strictly in accordance with all the facts and
| justice of the case.