26 Wend. 229 | N.Y. Sup. Ct. | 1841
When this cause was called up for decision:
Senator Verplanck observed, that he thought it well, that the explanation of the Chancellor had been made, for it ought not to be decided as a question of law, that it is impossible for a woman of the age of fifty-five to become the mother of a child, when, from works entitled to judicial notice, it seems that such an event is not impossible. He said he had lately observed mention made in a work on medical jurisprudence, of the birth of a child subsequent to the mother attaining the age of fifty-six
This is an amicable suit. The bill is filed for the specific performance of a contract for the purchase of land; and the only question is, whether the respondent, under the will of her father, and by the death of her only child without issue, is the owner in fee simple of the premises embraced in the contract 1 As regards the house and lot in Cherry-street, there can be no question that the respondent took an estate in fee
The decree of the Chancellor should be affirmed.
On the question being put, Shall this decree he reversed? all the members of the court present, who had heard the argument, answered in the negative. Whereupon the decree of the Chancellor was Affirmed.
Women in -England and North America ordinarily cease to bear children between the ages of forty-five and fifty, but there are many exceptions. Dr. Theodric Romeyn, Recle, in his valuable work on Mediad Jurisprudence, vol. 1, p. 523, 6th ed. after mentioning the famous case in which the Duke of Hamilton was appellant, and Archibald Stewart respondent, in which the latter claimed to be the son of Lady Jane Stewart, who was delivered of twins in her fiftieth year, and alluding to a previous part of his work, page 207 of the same volume in which he had treated of births in females óf advanced