TRUTH STRANGER THAN FICTION.

Evening Star, Issue 2970, 26 August 1872, Page 3

TRUTH STRANGER THAN FICTION.

A suit has lately been decided in the "Victorian Supreme Court, the details of which are more romantic than any novelist, even of the sensational school of tbe present day, could dream of. In the town of Beverley, County of Yorkshire, England, lived in the first quarter of the century a man named Thomas Graham, a cabinetmaker by trade. In 1821, being then nineteen years of age, he married oho Jane Lancaster, by whom he bad two sons, William Gr drain and John Lancaster Graham. Owing to a quarrel he had with bis wife about a legacy of LIOO, he left her about the year 1820, and nothing further of him was heard at Beverley, but there were rumors that he had married another woman. In the year 183.3 a man named Thomas Graham sailed from Liverpool to Hobart Town in the ship Hibernia. He was accompanied by a woman whom he had married, and by whom he had three children. At the time of her marriage she was a widow, and had children by her first husband, a Mr Hudson, a lawyer. The Hibernia was burnt at sea, and of Graham’s family only himself and his stepson (one of Hudsons) were saved. They were taken to Rio, -vyhere Graham worked as a cabinetmaker, and thence he came to Hobart Town, where he remained for five or six years. At Hobart Town he became acquainted with the wife of a person named James Crook, employed in the Ordnance departments, lived with her as his wife, and in 1841 married her in Melbourne Crook did not die till 1846. Graham amassed money, became the owner of land and houses and established a brewery in East Collingwo?d, which gave him good profits. On the 31st January, 1871, this Graham died suddenly, intestate and Mrs Graham, his supposed wife, applied for administration. Herrightwasimmediatcly opposed by a number of persons, including her own daughter, on the ground that she was not Graham’s lawful widow, her first husband (Crook) having been alive at the time of the marriage. Whilst they were squabbling in this way, startling news came from England. On the Ist January, 1871, a month before his death, Graham wrote a letter addressed on the envelope to John Lancaster Graham, or his brother William Graham, Beverley, Yorkshire, England. This letter stated that the persons to whom the letter was addressed were the sous of Thomas and Jane Graham, that Thomas had been a cabinetmaker, that he was now getting old, and had considerable property to bequeath, and asking his sons to apply to him at once. .Strange to say, this letter, so curiously addressed, fell into the hands of the parties for whom it was intended, who immediately communicated with a firm of solicitors in Melbourne, the letter reaching this country as Mrs Graham (who bad compromised with the parties vvho had been litigating hfr title) was a bout tojobtain admiois,

tratiou. There being no evidence in support of the genuineness of the letter, the Court recognised Mrs Graham’s right to be appointed adiniuistratix. A suit in equity was then inditufcid, the question for decision being whether the Tcomas Graham who died in Melbourne, in IS7I, was the S hornas Graham of Beverley, father of the pLaiiitafts. Evidence was taken by a commission, the case was argued a short time si.we, and judgment pronounced by Mr Justice Moles worth in favor of the plaintiffs’ claim to be the sons of Graham, the brewer. As their mother did nt die till 1800, in no aspect of the caso could Mrs Crook he considered the widow ot the deceased, and therefore she has no title to any part of the property. The estate is supposed to be worth from L 50,000 to LGO,COO.