AS GREAT A FRAUD AS THE TICHBORNE CASE.

Tuapeka Times, Volume VII, Issue 369, 1 July 1874, Page 6

AS GREAT A FRAUD AS THE TICHBORNE CASE.

A litigation which one of the counsel concerned, describeil as " involving aa great a fraud as the Tichborue case," has just been brought to a close in one of the courts at Brooklyn, U.S. It is, however, so far unlike the Tichborne case that all the material facts can be slated in very few words. The action lay between two women, who both claimed to be the widow of one man. The first had been married to John Carroll, in England, in 1826, and when she had borne him four children — two of whom survive, he, for some cause unknown, deserted her in 1842. For twenty-eight years she heard nothing of him ; but in . 1870, she was told that he was to be found .at Brooklyn. To Brooklyn accordingly she went, to lay at her husband's feet more than a quarter of a century's arrears of wifely affection. Sad to say, she*found him with another wife and four children ; the second wife alleging that John Carroll had married her in England in 1842, and carried her across the seas. The course taken by the various persons concerned seems to indicate that John Carroll, being a man of little or no strength of character, had made choice successively of two wives who did not share his weakness. He did, indeed, repudiate the claims of his first wife, but she at once responded by bringing against him a suit of divorce, and then finding himself in an awkward predicament, he once more retreated from the scene, Having made a will in favour of his' second wife, and having settled all his affairs, he left the two women to fi^hfc the matter among themselves. He seems to have returned to the land of his birth, and a report reached his wives that he was dead. Widow number one, thinking he had died intestate, thereupon endeavoured to get letters of administrotion, while widow number two applied to have the will admitted to probate, and succeeded. Number one, however, was not to be beaten. Finding that a march had been stolen upon her, she at once instituted proceedings for an admeasurement of dower. A commission was sent to England, evidence was found that she was John Carroll's lawful wife, and her claim was allowed. Number two had still a shot in her locker. Through her counsel she intimates the possibility that Carroll's death is only a sham, and it is thought that she intends to make use of the doubt. If a claimant to the name and estates of John Carroll should turn yip, it would be to her interest to recognise him.