Eichelberger's Appeal
Eichelberger's Appeal
Opinion of the Court
—There is a principle to be enforced in this case which is to be distinctly understood. No guardian can set up his ward in business at the risk of the ward ; and least of all, in the business of a publican, which requires habits of temperance to have been previously formed and established. Why does the common law withhold from an infant capacity to bind himself, except in cases of extreme necessity! Undoubtedly, to protect him from the consequences of inexperience. But if the effect of putting him in a state of pupilage is but to expose him the more certainly to the dangers from which the want of legal capacity was intended to guard him, it would be better that he should have no guardian at all. If the effect of the office is but to enable him to do indirectly what he could not do directly, it becomes no more than an instrument to evade the wisest provisions of the law. Such, however, is not its effect. It is the business of a guardian to manage, in person, the estate of the ward for the ward’s benefit; and if he do not, he must take the con
Decree accordingly.
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