13 MARCH 1886, Page 3

So many bad stories are just now under discussion in.

the Courts, that it is a pleasure to record a good one- The. late Mr. Joshua Dixon, shipowner of Liverpool, died. in the autumn of 1885. He had, in February of that year, made a will ; but just before his death he fell under a form of delusion not infrequent among the rich, and believed himself a pauper. He consequently destroyed the will. It appears; however; that to destroy a will a man must be of sound mind.; and as -a draft of the will existed, a long and costly lawsuit ought to have resulted. The chief person to benefit by the destruction of the will was, however, Mr. Abraham' Dixon, a brother of the testator, who lost under that document £60000; and he insisted that the draft should be held valid: It was accordingly made valid in the Probate Court on Wednes- day, the main evidence as to the testator's mental unsound- ness being given by Mr. A. Dixon himself. Inch credit was not due to him, we suppose, for, as he knew the facts and the law, he only performed an act of common honesty ; but still, the opportunity of fining oneself sixty thousand pounds, in order to keep one's self-respect, is not given to every man; and the Probate Judge's opinion of the suitors before him is far from leading him to expect pecuniary rectitude in all men. One would almost imagine, rare as such a personage is in this world, that Mr. Abraham Dixon would return a book he borrowed.