Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 6.djvu/657

Rh dead; the four children of Edward Murta, and their guardian; and Maguire, the administrator of Edward Sullivan. The only defendants who have been summoned are Rosanna Andoe and Mason, her present committee; Elder, her former committee; and Merryman, the administrator of the deceased committee. The other defendants are now residents of this district, and have not been summoned, nor have they appeared or answered.

The proof which the complainants have produced convincingly establishes the relationship claimed by them to the intestate, Edward Sullivan. The family history of the intestate, and of his five brothers and one sister, is clearly proved by the testimony of numerous witnesses examined under a commission sent to Ireland, and they are corroborated in many essentials by the production of a copy of the will of the mother of the intestate, dated in 1838, in which the intestate is mentioned by name, and described as residing in Pittsburgh, in America, and the testator's nephew, John Andoe, is also mentioned as residing at Pittsburgh. Special provision is made for the support of the testator's only daughter, the complainant Emily Sullivan, who was then and now is both deaf and dumb; and the other sons of the testatrix, brothers of the intestate, are also mentioned.

It also clearly appears, we think, from the proof, that Henry Murta, in the affidavit he made on the thirtieth of January, 1869, to procure the distribution ordered by the probate court of St. Louis, was guilty of many false statements and suppressions of the truth. It was not true, to begin with, that Matthew Andoe, his maternal grandfather, through whom he traced his relationship to the intestate, was the intestate's uncle, as he alleged. It was true, however, that his maternal grandmother was an aunt of the intestate. It was not true that his own mother, through whom he traced his kinship, was dead. She was then living in Ireland, and did not die until 1874, and letters had been received by her from him in 1866. The account he gave of the death of his own brothers and sisters was not true. Several of them were then living in Ireland, and also quite a number of his cousins, who