Sec 124

In several European states, as is elsewhere shown,1 process is given by which persons shown to be irreclaimable spendthrifts are put under the charge of guardians, and decreed to be divested of business capacity. Similar statutes have been enacted in some of the states of the American Union. But a decree to this effect does not avoid the spendthrift's contracts for necessaries furnished him.2 And such statutes have no extra-territorial force.3 In most jurisdictions the object of the procedure is to prevent the party from being chargeable to the town ; and the application in such cases must come from the town authorities. The effect of the procedure, under the statutes, is to incapacitate the spendthrift from making contracts (except, as has just been seen, for necessaries) which will further impoverish his estate.4

Spendthrifts may be incapacitated by statute.

18 Pick. 115 ; Crowninshield v. Crown-inshield, 2 Gray, 524 ; Hicks v. Marshall, 8 Hun, 327; Hutchinson v. Sandt, 4 Rawle, 234 ; Kneedler's App., 92 Penn. St. 428. See, as sustaining admissibility of such records, Dexter v. Hall, 15 Wallace, 9 ; Caulkins v. Fry, 35 Conn. 170 ; Burke v. Allen, 29 N. H. 106 ; L'Amoureux v. Crosby, 2 Paige, 422; Fitzhugh v. Wilcox, 12 Barb. 235 ; Wadsworth v. Sherman, 14 Barb. 169 ; Nichol v. Thomas, 53 Ind. 53 ; Elston v. Jasper, 45 Tex. 409. In.

Lagay v. Marston, 32 La. Ann. 170, the finding of a commission that a woman was notoriously insane was treated as affording the presumption that a party who had previously contracted with her must have been aware of her condition.

1 Whart. Conf. of Laws, sec 122.

2 McCrillis v. Bartlett, 8 N. H. 569.

3 Whart. Conf. of Laws, sec 122.

4 See 1 Parsons on Contracts, 388 ; Smith v. Spooner, 3 Pick. 229 ; Manson v. Felton, 13 Pick. 206.