The will contested, which was that of a Yorkshire money-lender, disposed of property to the value of over L80,000, and was propounded by a niece of the testator who, when he died, if not actually weak in his mind, was in his dotage, and superstitious to the verge of insanity.

The niece to whom all the property was left--to the exclusion of the son and daughter of the deceased, both married, and living away from home--stayed with the testator and looked after him.

Shortly before his death, however, he and this niece had violently quarrelled on account of an intimacy which the latter had formed with a married man of bad repute, who was a discharged lawyer's clerk.

So serious had been the quarrel that only three days before his death the testator had sent for a lawyer and formally, by means of a codicil, deprived the niece of a sum of L2,000 which he had left her, all the rest of his property being divided between his son and daughter.

Three days afterwards, however, he duly executed a fresh will, in the presence of two servants, by which he left all his property to the niece, to the entire exclusion of his own children.