Unfortunately, however, it did not greatly benefit Augusta, the victim
of the unlawful dissemination of photographs of her shoulders, inasmuch
as the judgment was not delivered till a week after the great case of
Meeson _v._ Addison and Another had been settled.
About a week after Augusta’s adventure in Regent-street, a motion was
made in the Court of Probate on behalf of the defendants, Messrs.
Addison and Roscoe, who were the executors and principal beneficiaries
under the former will of November, 1885, demanding that the Court
should order the plaintiff to file a further and better affidavit of
scripts, with the original will got up by him attached, the object, of
course, being to compel an inspection of the document. This motion,
which first brought the whole case under the notice of the public, was
strenuously resisted by Mr. James Short, and resulted in the matter
being referred to the learned Registrar for his report. On the next
motion day this report was presented, and, on its appearing from it
that the photography had taken place in his presence and accurately
represented the tattoo marks on the lady’s shoulders, the Court
declined to harass the “will” by ordering her to submit to any further
inspection before the trial. It was on this occasion that it transpired
that the will was engaged to be married to the plaintiff, a fact at
which the Court metaphorically opened its eyes. After this the
defendants obtained leave to amend their answer to the plaintiff’s
statement of claim. At first they had only pleaded that the testator
had not duly executed the alleged will in accordance with the
provisions of 1 Vic., cap. 26, sec. 2, and that he did not know and
approve the contents thereof. But now they added a plea to the effect
that the said alleged will was obtained by the undue influence of
Augusta Smithers, or, as one of the learned counsel for the defendants
put it much more clearly at the trial, “that the will had herself
procured the will, by an undue projection of her own will upon the
unwilling mind of the testator.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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