CURIOUS CLAIM FOR £20,000.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXVI, Issue 9489, 11 August 1891, Page 2

CURIOUS CLAIM FOR £20,000.

London, June-12. One of the mosij - extraordinary suits which ever wasted the time of a High Court has been dragging on before Mr Justice Bomar ever since the Whitsuntide holidays. The plaintiff, fc dtled-up, chippy little woman, named Margaret Smith, claimed the substantial sum of .£20,000 from the estate of the late John Cornelias Bark. From the first it was obvious that this good lady had not a thousand to one chance of the verdict. A Jury would have stopped the trial when the plaintiff's case - closed, but there was none, unfortunately, and so the weary farce dragged on days longer than it need have done.

The characters in Smith v. Park can be truthfully labelled "more eccentric than the wildest creations of fiction." The audacious Miss Smith, described by her own counsel as “an Irish lady of gentle birth, good education, and considerable attainments," asked the Court to believe that ah old gentleman, named John Cornelius Park, had offered her .£30,000 to induce her to marry his son Cornelius John Park, with', a solatium of .£20,000 in case the said son, N Cornelius John Park, refused the bargain. Mr John Cornelius Park was ol humble origin, a sort of Mr Boffin. How he amassed his money did not transpire, but the old gentleman died at Teddington four years ago, leaving £IOO,OOO. After his. funeral Mies Smith produced a deed which neither his wife nor his son had ever seen, but which she affirmed had been duly executed by him to the effect already stated. It was in the nature of a covenant, and it provided that, if Miss Smith should in Mr Park’s lifetime, and in accordance with his expressed wish, become the wife of his son Cornelius, Mr Park would, on or before the wedding day, pay her £30,000 as a marriage portion for her sole use and benefit. If, on the contrary, the son should not consent to fulfil his father’s wish or .should die without having married Miss Smith, then she was to receive £20,000 instead of the £30,000, within six months after Mr Park’s death, with interest at 5 per cent. According to one paper mentioned during the trial (though not put in, as it had been destroyed), the old gentleman’s desire to benefit Miss Smith had gone even farther. It was said that he had executed a will in her favour in these simple terms“ Mias Mary Josephine Smith, I hereby give you all I possess in the world, or am likely to possess." Shortly after the death of her venerable benefactor, the lady had fallen on very evil times. She was arrested on a charge of conspiracy to defraud, and, on her conviction, was sent to prison. Whila she was in prison her papers were seized by the police ; and, according to her statement, the love letters from Mr Cornelius, which would have gone far to prove her case, mysteriously disappeared. That was a pity, for she had not a line in his handwriting to prove his desire to marry her. The cross-examination of the claimant by the Solicitor-General revealed the fact that she had a perfect passion for litigation. She was preparatory governess to a Mrs Grady in Ireland, and she brought an action against that lady for wrongful dismissal, but did not succeed. She was equally unlucky in an action for libel against the same lady. Then she entered a Mies Bodkin's employment, and subsequently sued her for wrongful dismissal. She afterwards became a visiting governess to a Mrs Kingsley with the same result—actions for wrongful dismissal and for libel. She had also brought an action, or made a claim against, • Mrs Maguire’s estate for the value of a box and its contents, and she had produced a document purporting to ba written by Mrs Maguire which “ she understood ’’ the Master of the Bolls to say might be a concoction. She agreed to go ' as companion to a Mrs Law. She did not go, but she brought the inevitable action, and with the usual result. Afterwards she had an engagement as companion to a Mrs Murphy, and she had brought an action against her. She had an action pending against a Eoman Catholic priest, and her time had; been much taken up lately with three other oases in which she had been engaged. She had lived with a Mrs Yibarfc-Hughes, who was said to have given way to intemperance, but Miss Smith was not aware of her failing. The lady left Miss Smith £250 a year, but the will was disputed, and the Jury found that there hod been undue influence. . •_ The Judge was satisfied that the old gentleman had never executed the .deed. Mr Justice Eomer went further than this,, by characterising Miss Smith’s story, both as to the deed and as to the engagement, as a fraudulent concoction.