MR. CHARLES DICKENS. {From the Household Words, June 9.)

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XV, Issue 1167, 3 September 1858, Page 4

MR. CHARLES DICKENS. {From the Household Words, June 9.)

Marbiage with a Deceased Wife's Sister, — On the 17th of April, the Vice-Chancellor delivered judgment in the important case of Brook v. Brook, which had .been argued before him with the assistance of Sir Cresswell Cresswell, then one of the the judges of the Common Pleas, in the month of November. No the 4th of December, the learned judge being appointed judge of the Court of Prebate, had delivered his opinion as to the validity of a marriage with a deceased wife's sister in a foreign country, the parties being British subjects, although by the law of such country the marriage was legal. In that opinion the learned judge declared that by law the marriage was illegal and void, and that the children of the second marriage are illegitimate. The Vice-Chancellor now went through the whole facts of the caße, and said he entirely concurred in'the opinion and judgment of Sir Cresswell Cresswell. The facts of the case were, that in 1847, Charlotte, the first wife of the late Wm. Leigh Brook, of Meltham Hall, near Huddersfield, died. By her he had one son and one daughter. In 1857, Wm. Leigh Brook intermarried at Altona, in the kingdom of Denmark, with Emily Armitage, the sister of his deceased wife. In 1855, the second wife, Emily, died of cholera at Frankfort, and two days after Mr. Brook died of the same disease. At Cologne, by the second marriage, there were born one sou and two daughters. By his will, Mr. Brook gave his real and personal property among his children of the two marriages, in certain proportions. Charles Armitage Brook, the son by the second marriage, had died lince the death of Mr. Brook, and the real question waa whether his share of Mr. Brook's real and personal estate went, as to the reality, to Mr. brook's son by the first marriage, and as to the personalty, among all Mr. Brook's children equally, or whether Charles Armitage Brook's share of such real personal estate went to the Crown by reason of the invalidity of the second marriage, being valid according to the law of Schleswig Holstein, was good in this country, and that the daughters were entitled to the share of Charles Armitage Brook to the property, and that it did not revert to the Crown as the estate of an illegitimate. The learned Vice-Chancellor concluded by saying he had given the case the most careful consideration, and come to the conclusion that the second marriage was illegal and void,. and that there must be judgment for the GiOY/n.— Judgment for the Crown.