WINGED RICHES.

Colonist, Volume II, Issue 137, 11 February 1859, Page 4

WINGED RICHES.

(From the Times.) ] Ye who listen with credulity to the whispers of vanity, and pursue with eagerness the phantom of a name., attend to the history of one richer than .Rasselas,—even to the history of One Peter Thellusson, late of the city of London, merchant. It is parti}' detailed in the columns of our this day's law report, but scarcely plainly enough to be understood without labour by non-legal minds. It is now sixty-two years since that Peter Thellusson took stock of his wordly possessions, and found that he had £600,00() in money, and land of the annual value of Peter Thellusson had satisfied the . ordinary ambition of an English bourgeois he had founded a family. Peter Isaac, the son of his youth and the prop of his house was heir to £35,000 a year in money and in land, and might claim to be a born gentleman. Peers and Peeresses might hereafter spring in intermediate succession from the loins of that denizen of a dingy little back parlour behind the bank. The best men upon' Change envied the rich and prosperous Peter Thellusson, who had no object of ambition unsatisfied. Peter was ofa different mind; hehad not nearly money enough. Xet other men be satisfied to found qne_ family,' Peter was lucky enough to have three sons, and hewould found three families. It was not that he loved his sons or his sons' sons; but.it was the hope and desire of this magnificently posthumous miser, to associate his name in future generations with three colossal fortunes. If he did not love his sons, he did not hate them; he was simply indifferent to everything but his one cherished object.

; Peter Thellusson took the very best legal advice, and made a will. 'He left a few trifling legacies, probably to show that no unnatural antipathy to-his children tainted that: will with mania. But his great fortune was all conveyed to trustees. It was to accumulate until every man, woman, and child of the offspring of Peter, and alive or begotten at the time of Peter's death, should also be defunct. No one of the children or grand-children who had ever looked Peter in the face, or trembled in his'-presence^pr squalled at the sound of his harsh hard voice, should ever be the richer for Peter's wealth. " And the rich man also died." Twelve months after making, this will, and sixty-one years from the present time, Peter was gathered ty his unknown fathers. The will was opened, arid created sensations which vibrated through the land in widening circles. Our law books picture to us the blank disappointment of the then living relatives, the gentle cachinnations of a past generation of lawj^ers, and the gaping wonder of the general public. There were three sons and six grand-sons of this malignant old merchant then alive —all destined to live the life of Tantalus; to see this great pagoda-tree growing up before them, yet never to pluck one unit of its fruit. The terms of the will enjoined that when the last survivor of all the nine children and grandchildren should yield up his breath, then the charm was to end;; the great mountain of accumulated wealth was to be divided into three portions, and one third was t© be given to each of the *l eldest male lineal descendants" of his three sons. Having thus done what he liked with his own, and excluded all his living progeny from all benefit, ■he ends With a whine to the Legislature •Worthy of Sbrylock appealing against mercy —he had earned his money with honesty arid industry, and he hoped the Legislature would not alter his will. Of course, the first thing that followed was a Chancery suit of the fattest bulk.

The common-sense view of the case would have been to set aside the will, as the product of a diseased mind—a mind rendered morbid as to its disposing powers . by : dwelling upon an irrational object. But Lords Loughboroughand Alvanlejr and Eldon, and judges of kindred sympathies, seem to have been led by their "love of.art to.admire the skill with which the technicalities of our blessed real property law had been adapted to' the object of this old trader. Perhaps, also, they saw something eminently sane and matter-of-fact in this good old sordid vice of accumulation, or were excited to admiration by seeing the meanest vice of man expanded into something like sublimity in its gigantesque proportions. The litigation went up to the House of Lords, and' the will was confirmed. This affair naturally made a great noise. The Legislature: took it-'up,; and, although they would not set aside the will by an ex post facto law, they branded Peter Thellusson's memory with the imputation of "vanity, illiberally and folly.;": ,and enacted by statute, 39th and 40th George 111., cap. 98, that the power of devising property for the purpose of.accumulation shall be restrained in; general to 21 years after the death of the testator. - Persons of an arithmetical and statistical turn of mind also occupied themselves with, the matter, and, with the aid of life insurance tables and Cocker, they calculated that this fund, accumulating at compound interest, could not amount to less than nineteen millions at the moment of distribution, and would very probably reach the tremendous figure of thirty-two millions. But " nothing is so false as facts, except figures." The calculators had forgotten to take account of that unknown quantity .which must in practical matters be represented; not by the letter "x," but by the word "litigation." Contemporaneously: with the Chancery suit to set aside the will., there was a cross-suit to have the trusts of the will performed under the direction of the Court of Chancery. That suit is now 60 years old, and, although children and grandchildren are dead, the suit is as hale and lively as it was in their earliest youth. That suit : was the : true heir io Peter Thellusson, and it is. still sponding his money like a frolicsome young .cornet. Necessarily, there were other suits. There were suits about post-testament acquisitions of real property, there were suits about advowsons, there

were suits about other matters, so numerous that even equity lawyers, riot stingy of their words, are fain to describe them as "various.' 3 The careful and improving management of the Court of Chancery has also exercised its influence upon this estate. The Yorkshire estates have participated in that excellent system, which has been so uniform in its action, that when we see a house all windowless and unpainted, totering and decaying, we can predicate with a tone of undoubting conviction, " That property is in Chancery." ;, . The last, survivor of the nine lives died in Feb., 1856, and four new bills were immediately filed. The property is now to be divided, not into thirds, but into moieties. There is, however, a question raised as to who is entitled. Who were the eldest male lineal descendants of old Peter Thellusson in February, 1856? There are two who are eldest in point of lineage, and two who are eldest in point of personal age. This point is still sub judice. It would not be very difficult to guess how it will be decided; but that is no matter of ours, nor would it have been a matter of the least interest to old Peter Thellusson. His object was to make the heap very large; he evirdently cared not a lock of wool as to which of his descendants might be the possessors. The public interest in this long line of litigation is confined to its general aspect. Peter Thellusson's clever scheme has turned out a foolish failure. No single Thellusson will stalk over the land, overshadowing our dukes and crushing our barons by the magnitude of his territorial possessions. IS!o thirty-two millions of money are expanded into iaroad acres, where men may travel and sa y—»Behold the conquests of the great Peter Thellusson." Whether Lord Rendlesham and Charles Sabine Augustus Thellusson diride the estate as the eldest in lineage, or whether Thomas and Arthur take as eldest in years, we should equally desire to be able to call up old Peter Thellusson to see the division of his anticipated accumulations. The Court of Chancery has so clipped and pollarded his oak, that it is not much larger than when he left it. It would be a fit punishment for that purseproud, vain, cruel old man, to see that he disinherited his own children only to fatten a generation .of lawyers; that he was the dupe of his own .subtlety, and that his name, instead of being associated with the foundation of a house of fabulous wealth, is only known in connexion with an abortive scheme of vulgar vanity.