THE SYRIAN WILL SUIT.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIII, Issue 200, 23 August 1902, Page 5 (Supplement)

THE SYRIAN WILL SUIT.

THE LADY AND THE RAINBOW.

In the Probate Division of the London Courts, on July 3, Mr Justice Barnes finally disposed of the case of Vincent V. Worsley and others, which was before the Court last November, and which, after one day's hearing, stood over for the purpose of the parties coming to a compromise.

The case, it will be remembered, was of a very singular character. It concerned the testamentary dispositions of the late Mrs Catherine Worsley, a clergyman's widow, who died in 1899, at the age of eighty, at "Mizpah," Am Anaub, Mt. Lebanon, Syria, leaving property worth about £40,000. Being a sufferer from neuralgia, she had gone with her husband to Syria in the belief that a warmer climate would benefit her health. They took witt them Richard Webb, who had for many years acted as coachman to Mrs, Worsley. She tools a great interest in religious teaching in schools, anfl started a school for Druse girls. She was assisted by Webb, who became a proficient Arabic scholar. In 18&t she made a will In Arabic, leaving Mr Webb the "legal overseer" of the landed property. By the will now in question he was made residuary legatee. The unsettled property, amounting to about £5000, was left to some relations.

In opening the case as against the will, Mr Inderwick, K.C., at the time said that Mrs Worsley became subject to very marked delusions, the principal one of which concerned Mr Webb, being under the impression that there was, some spiritual contact between them. She thought that "Webb had been appointed by Providence to look after the interest, of the Druses on Mount Lebanan, that there was a covenant: and that a rainbow was seen, under which she and Webb travelled for a considerable time, ana that it disappeared after a certain period; that she had been seen on one side of the rainbow, and Webb on the other, and that sometimes they were side by side in the middle of . the rainbow. She befeeved that they were bound together by a spiritual and religious bond, and that she could not do anything without him. In one of her letters she. described a marvellous rainbow", which descended over the trap in which she was driving, and travelled with it for over half a mile. At last the trap came to a publichouse, and she looked' to see if the rainbow, would pass over it; but "the rainbow went up a lane behind the publichouse." She l«oked upon the rainbow as a sign of ti-od's special protection over her. , •

It was now stated that all the parties had signed the terms of compromise, and after formal evidence, the judge pronounced Cor all the documents pro-

pounded.