If Miss Smithers, for instance, is not speaking the truth when
she declares that the signature of the testator was tattooed upon her
under his immediate direction, or that it was tattooed in the presence of
the two sailors, Butt and Jones, whose signatures were also tattooed in
the presence of the testator and of each other--no will at all was
executed, and the plaintiff's case collapses, utterly, since, from the
very nature of the facts, evidence as to handwriting would, of course, be
useless. Now, I approach the decision of this point after anxious
thought and some hesitation. It is not a light thing to set aside a
formally executed document such as the will of Nov. 10, upon which the
defendants rely, and to entirely alter the devolution of a vast amount of
property upon the unsupported testimony of a single witness. It seems to
me, however, that there are two tests which the Court can more or less
set up as standards, wherewith to measure the truth of the matter. The
first of these is the accepted probability of the action of an individual
under any given set of circumstances, as drawn from our common knowledge
of human nature; and the second, the behaviour and tone of the witness,
both in the box and in the course of circumstances that led to her
appearance there.
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