Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 18.pdf/660

 THE SEYMOUR WILL CASE living in Ohio, and by others who knew her in early days at Cincinnati, in California, and at New Orleans. At the first trial of this celebrated case, in the District Court, the judgment went in favor of the opponents — claimants — brother and sister of the decedent. From that judgment an appeal was promptly taken by the state to its own Supreme Court. After the record was filed an application was made by the attorneygeneral to remand the case to the District Court, in order that additional testimony, proposed to be furnished by that officer, might be submitted. This application was not considered until the case was decided upon its merits. On December 3, 1897, the Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the District Court. Allusion has been made to the fact of an application by the attorney -general to re mand the cause to the Distiict Court. That action, or rather the ultimate effect of it, proved something of a case of " the engineer hoist with his own petard." This applica tion set forth "that on account of partial developments of facts before the trial, and of certain occurrences on the trial, he be came strongly impressed with the convic tion that plaintiffs had not fairly exposed their family history," etc., and that conse quently he had determined to make a more extensive investigation. His plan was, sub sequent to the rendition of final judgment, to send a detective to Ohio to institute rigid inquiries among the people of the vicin ity where Rachel Fanny Brown was born, and resided during her girlhood, in order to ascertain the real facts and incidents of her history. The investigation thus set on foot formed the basis of the application to remand. The court, in disposing of this motion, said: "In our opinion, the conclusion at which we first arrived is not thereby materially altered; for they are perfectly consistent with the evidence in the record with regard

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to the lives and characters of 'the Brown girls,' and particularly of that of Rachel Fanny Brown; but in one important par ticular they make a new disclosure, to the effect that Rachel Fanny Brown resided in the vicinity of her childhood's home in 1844 and 1845 and a part of 1846 — a period of time which has not heretofore been ac counted for by any of the witnesses. "They further definitely disclose the fact that, in the latter part of 1845, or the early part of 1846, she discontinued her employ ment as a chambermaid at the Chapman House at Guyandotte, W. Va., and returned to Cincinnati. That statement more closely connects Fanny Brown with the character of Fannie Seymour in June, 1846, than the testimony of the witnesses had done; but it is in no way inconsistent therewith. On the contrary, it makes it all the more prob able that Fanny Brown made her way to New York, and thence to London, in the early part of 1846, from which latter place she was returning in June, 1846, on the Waterloo. That statement is not inconsis tent with that of the witness Edward Ful ton, who said he knew Fanny Brown inti mately in Cincinnati in 1847, and the early part of 1848, nor that of George Duvall, who saw and knew her in New Orleans in 1846 — both of whom saw and knew her in California in 1850." The court then said that the formal testi mony of the various affiants would not alter the decision already announced, the motion to remand was refused, and the judgment in favor of the opponents, as the brother and sister claimants were styled, was affirmed. The reasonable assumption would have been that the sovereign state of Louisiana would gracefully bow to the decision of her highest court, even if not satisfied of its justice. Lame and impotent conclusion. Application for re-hearing was seasonably filed. On the eighth of March, 1898, a little more than three months after the case had been affirmed, the court announced that