THE BAGOT WILL CASE.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5434, 27 August 1878, Page 3

THE BAGOT WILL CASE.

(From the Saturday Review.)

- An : ‘important will case has lately been brought to a close in Dublin, after having, by dint of the introduction of a good deil of irrelevant matter, been made to afford excitement more or less unhealthy for the space of twenty-two clays. Irrespectively of the actual interests involved, the case is noteworthy as affording a curious insight into phases of society characteristic of that laxity of decorum and rejection of customary restrictions and safeguards which nowadays give thinking people so much ground for anxiety as to our national future. Had the grave charges adduced against the plaintiff In the case been proved, we should have passed the matter over as one which, if unfortunately not exceptional, was at least better forgotten as soon as possible. Those charges, however, though the jury were nob actually called upon to adjudicate on them, palpably fell through ; and the case as it stands is one with which we may fairly deal, and which suggests some obvious and useful deductions.

The will in dispute was that of Mr. Christopher Neville Bagot, an Irish gentleman, who, having emigrated to Australia in 1844, returned home some years ago with one of those large fortunes which were formerly to be made: in the colonies, purchased an estate in Ireland for some hundred thousand pounds or so, and prepared to spend the remainder of his days according to the bent of his inclinations. Unfortunately those inclinations, whether innate or acquired in the rough life of the bush, do not appear to have been such as to prompt him to a wise use of his time or money. He drank hard, and otherwise led an irregular life. But society, which is uniformly charitable to the failings of the rich, received him gladly, and felicitously nicknamed him “ the Nugget,” under which name we may suppose him to have been the object of much not altogether disinterested attention. A hunting accident reduced him to the condition of a semiparalysed cripple, but did not preclude him from still going a good deal into society. In 1873 he met Miss Alice Verner, a young lady of good family but fast habits, who ultimate!v became his wife, his widow, and the plaintiff in the late suit. Even when cleared of all the aspersions with which the opposite side strove to blacken this lady’s character and that of her sister, their early lives do not appear to have been altogether consistent with customary English notions of strict maidenly reserve and simplicity. While living with their people in Eaton Square they had latchkeys of their own, and seemed to have availed themselves somewhat freely of the liberty thus secured, the class of amusements they patronised not being always of the order usually considered most edifying for unmarried women. We readily give full credit to the asseverations of those who assisted at these festivities that nothing actually immoral ever occurred ; from further comment on them we abstain. To Mr. Bagot’s not over-sensitive nature, however, the readiness of a young lady to participate in hazardous dissipations was probably rather a recommendation than otherwise, and the attractions which Miss Verner possessed for him were probably preferable to the very qualities which would have had a directly contrary effect on a man of more refined tastes and habits. So she suited Hr. Bagot, and he, or his fortune, suited her. But Mias Verner, if not prudent in all things, was at least so in. one, and Mr. Bagot, in order to attain his object, was reduced to the despicable meanness of a sham marriage, the most contemptible and cruel crime a man can perpetrate, Subsequent unhappinesses led to the disclosure of this fraud, and circumstances drove Miss Verner to insist on a legitimate ceremonial, which was ultimately performed at 11 o’clock at night on the Bth of August, 1875, under a special licence wrung from the authorities by the persistence of Miss Verner. A child was born soon after the real marriage, and was unquestionably acknowledged by Mr, Bagot as his own offspring. But, married or single, Mrs. Bagot seems to have been unable altogether to relinquish her former course of life. Although before her marriage she had signed a curious document; dictated by Mr. Bagot, wherein she undertook to “ give up and cut all fast and tipsy acquaint tances and lovers and admirers,” she found it difficult to confine herself to the society of her husband, who was querulous through disease, and excess, and for whom she can never have entertained any real respect or affection after the discovery of his ealier baseness towards her in the matter of the pretended marriage. . So there were frequent quarrels between them, methodically recorded by her with a cross in her diary against the days on which they occurred —neglect on her part, brutality on his. The dissensions were fomented, and the husband’s suspicion aroused, by his brothers, until at length at their instigation he executed the disputed will, whereby he disinherited his child in favor of his brother, and left his widow the comparatively meagre provision of one thousand a year, his whole property consisting of seme fifty thousand pounds personally, and landed estates valued at about six thousand per annum. The brothers were aware of the contents of this will, and did all in their power to ensure the continuance of the estrangement between Mr. Bagot and bis wife, dogging the steps , of the latter with paid spies in order to discover matter of prejudice against her. The husband dragged on for a few years more a miserable existence, embittered by disease and jealousy, and only varied by alternate outbursts of passion and remorse, frequently giving vent, when in the last-mentioned frame of mind, to expressions clearly indicating his conviction of the groundlessness of his suspicions. Then his ill-spent life came to a close, and his widow, found herself confronted by the will which ousted her child from his birthright, and throw by implication the gravest slur upon her own honor, besides depriving her of a large portion of that which would have been hers had her husband died intestate. Sho at once disputed the will, alleging that Mr. Bagot was not of sound mind and disposing power at the time of its execution, and that it had been obtained by the undue influence and fraud of his relatives. The executors contended, in return, that the practical exclusion of Mrs. Bagot, and the disinheriting of the child were to be accounted for by the testator’s disgust at her frivolity and neglect, and by the reasonable doubts he may have entertained touching the paternity of the child ? and that. there was nothing to show that he was otherwise than in full, possession of his faculties up to the time of his death. Then the whole miserable story was dragged to light in Court; Mrs. Bagot and her sister were subjected to the most searching and cruel cross-examination, while numerous witnesses sought to prove against them -what they strenuously denied; counsel wrangled with one another and the Judge, in an unseemly manner,'which in old duelling days would inevitably have resulted in a meeting elsewhere than in Court; the'impulsive sympathy of an Irish audience ' was enlisted in favor of the plaintiff ; and the jury, after a patient hearing, could ultimately agree on only one finding—namely, that‘Mr. Bagot was, at the time of executing the will, laboring under a delusion as to ithe paternity ofliis child—a verdict which th 6 Judge interpreted'into one for the plaintiff, the accepted doctrine thet monomania or hallucinations on ony particular subject are, sufficiently in tho nature of insanity to deprive a testator of any valid disposing power. Proceedings for obtaining a new trial were at once threatened by the defeated party, and it cannot be denied that, in most of tho cases in which wills have been upset on the ground of delusions affecting the mind of tho testator, those delusions havo existed with regard, to topics embracing a larger field of ideas than in tho present instance, such as ;religion, imaginary hostility on the part of tho world at large towards the testator himself, ’ and so forth. On the.other hand, in the present case the delusion —by which must of course be understood an insane delusion arising from infirmity of mind, and not a mere 'misapprehension induced by the;suggestions of others—was so intimately connected with the subject-matter in question,, and, so directly calculated to affect tho feelings of the testator towards those whom he must either benefit «r injure according as ho left his property, that it would seem contrary to common sense' to treat tho delusion as compatible with sound disposing power. Moreover, monomania is a recognised form.of insanity ; and tho yery derivation of the word points to tho possible restriction of the hallucination* within very narrow limits. We trust, therefore, on mork grounds than ono,/that Mrs. Bagot may keep her verdict, and ; thafc tho disagreeable business of tho trialmay uofe have to be repeated.

One wonders how many more public exposures of the extravagances, follies, and worse elements, now so largely prevalent in those ranks of society which to a considerable extent regulate the tone of national Jife, will be needed before people awake to a consciousness of the necessity of »a thorough reformation in taste and morals, if the English character is to retain that simplicity and right thinking which we are, wont to claim as among its peculiar virtues. The. worst feature is that the decadence appears more rapid and widespread in the case of women than of men. So long as women continue to uphold a high standard of morality, courtesy, and respect for what is worthy of respect, so long will men at least endeavor to disguise their lower tastes and modes of thought. It is the women who set the feeling of society, and men have perforce to avoid outraging that feeling; when women thought none the worse of a man for drinking hard, men got drunk in society; when women tolerated swearing, men swore in society. Signs are unhappily, not wanting that the influence of women in English society is either being less strenuously exerted for good, or is actually tending to produce the opposite result. To judge merely from the public records, we have ladies spending large fortunes in dress, submitting themselves to the degrading operations of enamellers, making free use of latchkeys, and indulging in dangerous dissipations, while the Divorce Court deals with still more heinous derelictions of female duty. Nor can an observant person fail to be struck with the manifest intolerance of restraint . exhibited but too commonly by women who, from their position, might be expected to take a higher view of their calling in life. We have now got to the stage at which the symptom is most strongly developed in the younger members of the sex—a discouraging omen for the future. It is painful to dwell on this feature of modem life ; but the evil is a crying one, and unfortunately seems likely to become more permanent and progressive, to the downfall of all that is good and elevating in society. Another point brought out by the Bagot case is the slavish adulation accorded nowadays to mere wealth. A mon must no doubt have something in him if without fraud he can acquire by his own exertions an altogether disproportionate share of that which is more or less the goal.of everybody’s ambition, and for which the competition is so keen. But the singleness of purpose which has enabled him to attain signal success in one direction may have rendered him indifferent to the acquirement of all other qualities fitting him for the society of those to whose level, in point of pecuniary position, he had raised himself ; and the posisession of wealth, whether earned or acquired, u by no means inconsistent with offensive vulgarity of taste or habits. If, however, a man attains to the dignity of a “Nugget,” his roughness is pardoned, or lauded as absence of affectation ; his vulgarity treated as naturalness or eccentricity ; and his vices slurred over, or attributed to defective education. If he has a good house, and.gives good dinners, he can get plenty of people to go and eat them, even if they aggravate their meanness by laughing at him behind his back. We have set up a golden calf in London, and worship it as assiduously as ever did the Israelites theirs in Horeb ; while as yet there are no signs of any Moses descending from the Mount to smash our fetish.