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THE GREEN BAG

after having carefully considered the rea sons assigned for and against the applica tion made for a rehearing in the case, and the arguments of counsel for the appellant and appellee, it was as fully prepared to reach and announce its conclusions as it would be upon a rehearing formally granted, and — on what slender threads hang ever lasting things — concluded by saying : "The court is not fully satisfied with the condition of the evidence and is of the opinion that the interests of justice will be best subserved by setting aside the judg ment which it has heretofore rendered herein, and also that of the District Court appealed from, and remanding the cause to the Dis trict Court, there to be reinstated and tried on the evidence already taken in the case, and such additional evidence as both parties can and shall produce." Another trial resulted in favor of the opponents (the sister having died in the meanwhile, was succeeded by her sole heir, a married daughter). The state again ap pealed — the same attorney-general appear ing. On the twentieth of November, 1899, Monroe, J., delivered the opinion, begin ning: "The only question left in dispute in this case is whether the decedent was Rachel Fanny Brown, born in Laurence County, Ohio, or Fannie Minerva Seymour, said to have been born in England, and to have come to this country on the ship Waterloo in 1846." Then succinctly stating in chronological order the facts deemed established by the evidence respecting the life of Rachel Fanny Brown under her various names and aliases; also the history of her family, particularly of her elder sister Sarah, the court again — unanimously — held in favor of the oppo nents — Brown and sister. We shall not attempt to follow the logical and forcible reasoning of the distinguished jurist. One extract must suffice : "The only single thing that she was con sistent about was in not telling that her

name was Rachel Brown, and that she was a poor, uneducated girl from the banks of the Ohio River. Whether she had scruples about disgracing the name borne by her mother, or whether she thought Fannie Minerva Seymour sounded better than Rachel Fanny Brown, is a question that she alone could answer. We are inclined to think, at all events, that, in the case of a woman leading such a life as hers, the open and reiterated announcement of a name should rather be taken as an indication that the name so freely given is not her real name." There was, as has already been stated, an attempt to identify the Brown sisters with Ann and Mary Stevens, of Cincinnati. That was entirely unsuccessful. Several witnesses for the state swore most positively and cir cumstantially that Sarah, who as it was claimed afterwards became Ann Stevens, was chambermaid on the steamboat S. F. Vinton as early as 1847. But it was con clusively shown that that boat was not built until 1850. Some of the witnesses then undertook to say that it might have been the Swiss Boy that she was employed on, while others persisted in saying that she was on the S. F. Vinton at a time when the attorney -general himself admitted that boat was not in existence. The judgment of the District Court was affirmed unconditionally, and presumably the estate has been distributed accordingly. There is yet a mystery in that no showing seems to have been made of any communi cation or intercourse of any sort between the decedent and any member of the Brown family since 1882. There was no evidence of letters to her, nor from her, after that time. No explanation is offered, so far as appears, as to such cessation, no apparent reason why an appropriate holiday present, inscribed in terms of endearment, should have opened a gulf of separation never to be closed. SAN DIEGO, CAL., October, 1906.