A WIDOW'S FORTUNE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19412, 21 August 1926, Page 2 (Supplement)

A WIDOW'S FORTUNE.

THE RIGHT OF CONTROL.

SOME MILLIONS AT STAKE. LADY HOUSTON WINS SUIT. In the Royal Court of Jersey, a few weeks ago, Lady Houston,, widow of Sir Robert Houston, the millionaire shipowner, won her great fight for the right to control her fortune. World-famous specialists who had been.called to testify as to Lady Houston's mental and physical condition arrived in a body. They were Sir William Arbuthnot Lane, Sir Maurice Craig, Dr E. Farquhar Buzzard, the two great French physicians, Dr. J. F. P. Babinski and Dr. Pierre Janet, and Dr. George Macdonald, a doctor from Scotland.

Sir Arbuthnot Lane said he had known Lady Houston before her, marriage to Sir, Robert Houston, and he had held the opinion that she was a person quite

entitled to full personal liberty. Questioned by the Attorney-General, Sir Arbut'hnot declared that the mental confusion he had referred to was entirely associated with Lady Houston's physical condition and was not in. any way the result of brain trouble. It is stated that the fees and expenses of the experts came to £IO,OOO. * Lady Houston is now free to engage in a second fight for her four-fifths of the £7,000,000-estate. The will is being contested by Mr. Elmer Skinner, who claims to be a grandson of Sir Kobert Houston. It was on his application that an order placing the estate in"' the care of the Vicomte of the Island for a year and a day was made. Sir Robert Houston, who died on April 14 last, left £7,000,000. To his wife he bequeathed 1 £IOO,OOO, his 'luxurious yacht Liberty, plate and other effects, and four-fifths of the residue of his estate after payment of many bequests. Sir William Vernon, chief magistrate, referring to a certain paragraph on the case in a London newspaper, said that the object of the procedure of interdiction was that if the person concerned was deprived of his or her" civil rights it could only be done thoroughly and through the court of justice. In the present case there was

no doubt whatsoever that the Attorn evGeneral in the first instance was fully justified in reporting the condition of Lady Houston in order that she might be protected. The court was glad to have to hear the curator and the electors say unanimously, remarked the magistrate, that in their opinion Lady Houston's health, which through physical reasons had given out. was now restored. The specialists had said that the improvement was not a mere passing affair but that they had reasonable cause to believe that she was now restored completely. The whole object of the interdiction proceedings was to protect the subject, and in that respect he wished to say that, far from Jersey law being archaic, it was in reality more up : to-date than the English law. It was therefore- not right to suggest anything to the contrary.