READY FOB "THE RESURRECTION SCRAMBLE."

Auckland Star, Volume XXXV, Issue 199, 20 August 1904, Page 9

READY FOB "THE RESURRECTION SCRAMBLE."

There have been plenty of ecoentric judges ia the Old Country, and I believe your country has not been entirely free from legal administrators popularly held to have "bees in their bonnets." It is doubtful, however, whether, either with us or with you, there lias beeu a judge with more curious idiosyncrasies thai the late Mr. Thorns, erstwhile Sheriff of Caithness, and the Orkney and Shetland Islands. So queer were his ways indeed that when, after his death, his relatives discovered that out of the £59,000 constituting his estate he had left no less than three-fourth* for improving St. Magnus Cathedral, in Lerwick, the Shetland capital, they promptly contested the will on the ground that Mr. Thorns, in the later days of bis life, was not competent to look after his own affairs. They have succeeded ia persuading the Court of Sessions at Edinburgh to allow a jury to judge whether the testator was in his right mind or otherwise, and in doing so they produced an earlier will, in whichMr. Thorns bad inserted a provision that lie should be "buried in a wicker, or other light coffin, so as to have a fair chance to be early in the general scramble at the Kesurrectiou." Later it evidently oe eurred to him that he would stand a better chance of a front seat if his mortal remains were reduced to a small compass and kept above ground, so he revoked the wicker coffiu clause and gave instructions for his body fa be cremated aud the ashes kept in an unsealed urn. The relatives also produced au elaborate set of rules, which Mr. Thorns had had printed for the guidance of his domestics in their daily dutie*. These rules contained a schedule of lines for infractions which were not only applicable to servants, but to himself and to his favourite cat •"Sambo," which was rigorously penal • ised if it dftturbed the order of the house. Another o: Mr. Thorns' idiosyncrasies was what lie called his "laughing waistcoat"' ■ — a garment with elastic sides, which he always wore when he went out to dine. Possibly some may consider this sartorial provision for the stomachic exigencies of twelve-course public banquets a sign that the late Sheriff was far from Wing "looney." Another thing mentioned by the relatives as tending to prove their claim that Mr. Thorn was not quite "all there" was hi? sudden conclusion that lit was chief o_j[ .the.jplan MacTlioniM <»f Gleushee. He was certainly not chieftain of that clan, but he persisted in referring to himself as such, called himself "Ye MacConish," and re-published* a book of the family of Glenshee. with additional chapters desigsHid to prove his own headship of the clan.