RIGHTED AT LAST.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XVI, Issue 2165, 8 December 1885, Page 2

RIGHTED AT LAST.

i Dreary reading as the reports of civil actions in the Supreme, Court are,, they sometimes furnish the skeleton of a romance, or, at any rate, |they sometimes furnish the romance of a shilling novelette. Of this kind was the case of 'Saunders: v Cabot, finally settled by tin Court of Appeal hi Wellington only the other day. To accept the plaintiffs allegations at the trial as entirely correct in eveiy [detail is not, of course obligatory on any one. Our readers may believe as much or as little of them as they chose, and. should bear in mind that a, plaintiffs story always reads most excellently until the defendant's has been heard. With this caution we may proceed to narrate. the said story. Fn tho year. 1859 Thomas Cabot sola to James Saunders a, piece of land in Timaru, which has since acquired considerable value, Shortly afterwards Saunders; who was a ferryman, married a Maori, or half caste, wife, who made him the father of two sons, the plaintiffs in the case just concluded. In 18C2 the father died, leaving his property to his family in equal shares. His will was never proved, and of the three witnesses thereto, two left t]ie country and were lost sight of. The widoiw took the land an,d let it, and declared that she applied tq Oahofc for the tjtle deed?., but that ho disputed her rights, and hall persuaded, half-frightened her into taking a small sum from him in settlement of all her olaim to the land, She then gave him baok the conveyance or document which evidenced the sale by him to her dead husband, and he, on getting possession thereof, burnt it. This burning, as being unbusinesslike, adds of course greatly to the romance of the situation. Then Cabot brought the land under the operation o the Land. Trj\nsfe| M obtained an indefeasahlij c,ort!ftca(,e 'qf fcitlp for himself, and proceeded! as; regis.tercel proprieter pf the property to enjoy his ill-gotten gains, finis alleged the plaintifts, and, aoceptiiig their tale as true, there could-be no doubt with which side sympathy would naturally lie at the trial, Indeed, even after reading Mr Cabot's ingenious and not improbalo defence, we must confess to a, paling of satisfaction jjhai; the y.lotorj;' ultimately lay with jrtrc "widow and'the "orphan. The gist of this defence, so faras facts were concerned, appears to have been thai tho re-purchase from tlie y#)w. was a fair am) feasqnable transaction; that the sum. paid by Cabot yery well represented the land's value at a time when land at Timaru did not fetch by any means extravagant prices—whoa railways and breakwaters were not, and land revonue was a wild dream of the future; and that ho was under the impression, as he might not unnaturally be, that the widow was entitled tq dispp.se of her late laiiu,' and was 1 fl'ie' proper' person ffij fj purchaser to deal with/' Nevertheless',' as before said,'we arc not sorry that on three hearings, f| (3p,urfc gf jaw shou]4 tjiree. time's haye'thought Ifr. fjabot mistaken. Geritjemep who jmyji 'dealings "ivit!l tlie widow and the orphan should rake especial ?are to guard against legal mistakes, as wellasagainst the faintest suspioion of driving hard bargains, and should the care they exercise not bo sufficient, they cannot complain if, when they are worsted in lawsuits, on-lookers express something less than no regret at all.—-Timaru Herald/