And horror of
horrors, Alfred did not appear.
Mr. Colt's opening may be thus condensed: The plaintiff was a young
gentleman of great promise and distinction, on whom, as usual in these
cases of false imprisonment, money was settled. He was a distinguished
student at Eton and Oxford, and no doubt was ever expressed of his sanity
till he proposed to marry, and take his money out of his trustees hands
by a marriage settlement. On this his father, who up to that time had
managed his funds as principal trustee, showed him great personal
hostility for some time, and looked out for a tool: that tool he soon
found in his brother, the defendant, a person who, it would be proved,
had actually not seen the plaintiff for a year and a half, yet, with
great recklessness and inhumanity, had signed away his liberty and his
happiness behind his back. Then tools of another kind--the kind that
anybody can buy, a couple of doctors-- were, as usual, easily found to
sign the certificates. One of these doctors had never seen him but for
five minutes, and signed in manifest collusion with the other.
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