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WILLIAMS' CASE. 207
to authorize a sale of an infant's estate, under these laws, it must
be stated and shewn, that he has no other property; that he has
no other means of obtaining a maintenance and education from
his property, from a parent or otherwise; and that, under all cir-
cumstances, a sale of that, his only property, is indispensably
necessary to place it in safety, and to secure to him, from it, a
maintenance and education; and it is moreover my opinion, that
all other and more latitudinous interpretations and applications of
these laws, must be deemed unconstitutional and void.
These general and standing acts of Assembly extending to the
utmost verge, and in some respects beyond the constitutional com-
petency of the General Assembly, have clothed this court, unas-
sociated with any other tribunal, with a large, entirely new, and
exceedingly delicate discretionary power, as to the disposition of
the real estates of infants. It is a power which can, in no case,
be carried into effect, with the same degree of confidence as those
which the court exercises in controversies between litigating
adults; for, in whatever manner a suit of this kind may be insti-
tuted, it is obvious, that the whole proceeding must be substan-
tially, and in fact, conducted without the actual appearance, or any
expression of opinion from the only person whose interest and
advantage is alone to be considered. It is a sort of judicial pro-
ceeding which may easily be got up, and brought before the court
by persons actuated by motives entirely at variance with the inte-
rests of the infant; and which sinister motives cannot be so sea-
sonably detected as to prevent the designed sacrifice of the infant's
interests. For, according to the general practice, in all cases
where an infant is made a defendant, the plaintiff, or petitioner,
names the commissioner, and has the carriage of the commission
for taking the infant's answer by guardian; and, in cases of this
kind, the Chancellor having no means of obtaining information,
but through the petitioner, is under a sort of necessity of accept-
ing his nomination of three freeholders, to whom the commis-
sion of view and valuation is to be directed. There evidently,
therefore, can be no security that a correct description of all the
several component parts of the infant's real and personal estate has
been given in the petition, or shewn in any way, (r) or that all the
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(r) It is stated in this petition, that these infants had ' no other source of revenue
than this farm;' whence it might be inferred, that they had no other estate whatever.
Yet by the act of 1882, ch. 102; and their petition, filed here on the 28th of May,
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