A STRANGE STORY Romance of a Caso In Chaucery.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 203, 14 May 1887, Page 2

A STRANGE STORY Romance of a Caso In Chaucery.

A novj:ust would iind all the mateiial for a tivst-elass romance in the Do Tounille case, which has for a number of years been drawing its length through the Court of Chancery, England, and which had Middmly acquired popular interest by the development of a new point in the ease which was finished on April 2nd. It appears that Heniy de Tourville, an Englishman, had a son by his first marriatre. The rh-st wife dying here, he married in 1871. In 1877 his second w ife met her death by a fall in the mountains of tire Tyrol. De Tourville was accused of pushing his wife o\er a declhity where she fell. He was condemned by the Austrian authorities to death. \\ ith ditliculty this sentence was commuted to eighteen years' imprisonment. His first wife was the heiress of large property in Yorkshire. In the event of her death her property was to return to her son, and in detault to him it was to go to cousins designated in her will. Among these were Mr Brighaiu and his sister, residents of Manchester. Hear) de Tourville had no reason for assassinating hi* second wife, and his guilt was- never clearly established. His conviction was behe\ed in London to have been the result of a judicial error, for if there had been any doubt about it a commutation of his sentence could not have been obtained. His son, after tho condemnation of his father, was taken from boarding-school, wheie he was under an assumed name, by a friend of De Tourville, who jiaid tho expenses of tho education of the child. Young Do Tourville is now 18 years old, and he lias finished his studies in one of the principal colleges of Franco, where he graduated with distinction. He has about reached the age when he would be entitled to take possession of the property in Yorkshire, and his rights in that direction are being contested by the cousins Rritrham, and tins is where the romance begins. In ISB3 there was found on the shores of the Bay of Naples the body of a child, whose identity at that time was not discovered. The body was clothed in a uniform similar to that worn by students iti the colleges of Paris, only the buttons of the coat were of leather and not ha\im> in relief the name of the college to which young De Tounille was sent. Mr Biijj;ham and his sister, however, set up the ciy that the body the body of De Tourville's boy, ; nd asked the Court of Chancery here to give them the Yorkshire estate. They rest their case upon the fact that De Tom - ville's heir is no longer in existence. The fact that the name of Do Ton mile's boy was changed and that he was educated under an assumed name has added to the embamassment of the principal heir. The object of changing the boys' name was to protect him from the disgrace attaching to hi 1 - father's imprisonment. It is inobable that the case will 1 1111 along to the extent of eating up the entire property, so complicated bus become the dispute. The tenants of the Yorkshire estates ha\cnot paid their rents for several yeats, because they claim that there is no one who can give them a proper receipt. It is hoped that the matter muy be settled by an appeal to the Emperor of Australia for clemency in the case of De Tourville, who has now served ten years of his senteneo. If he could be released he could return to England and resume the administration of the fortune of his son, whose legal guardian ho is to-day, in spite of his imprisonment. It is believed that De Tourville is innocent, and that clemency would be but a simple act of justice. In looking over the facts in the original case against De Tour ville, it is noticed that there were a number of people interested in bis condemnation and in the death of his son. The fortune of the father has already been eaten up in legal expenses. The expenses of the De Tourville case now pending have already reached the sum of £10,000 The Brighton cousins have claimed to be able to get possession of the Yorkshire estates, and defy the legal heir to make out his case and prove his own identity, but the case came to an end before Justice Kay on April 2nd, who stated that he had seen young De Tourville. He censured the solicitors and dismissed the application. Sir Henry Jame.- said that the responsibility of the mistake was accepted by the barrister who drew up the petition.