ECCENTRIC WILL-MAKERS.

Auckland Star, Volume L, Issue 254, 25 October 1919, Page 24

ECCENTRIC WILL-MAKERS.

HUMOUR AND MALICE FROM THE GRAVE. On condition that they agreed to hang the oil painting of his "dear old dog Callum with a dead rat" in a conspicuous place in one of their galleries, a recently deceased Banffshire man left his entire fortune of £ 70,000 to the trustees' of the Scottish National Galleries. It is understood that the trustees have agreed 1 to the curious condition stipulated in tho testator's will. The testator, the late Mr. James Cowan Smith, was born in Banffshire, but spent the greater part of his life at Bothamshall, near Retford, Notts, where his numerous benefactions, as well as his keen business enterprise, made him widely and popularly known. There has ever been a sort of fascination to many people in leaving their money or estates with more or less strange conditions attaching to the inheritance of them. It has frequently been a difficult matter fulfilling those conditions; occasionally it has been practically impossible.

A few years ago-the incumbent of St. John the Evangelist at Boscombe found himself in a curious quandary through the whimsical condition attached to the will of one of his flock. This eccentric testatrix bequeathed to the cleric an endowment of £1500 on strict condition that he divested himself of the white surplice of Anglicanism and appeared at all ordinances in the sombre black of a Geneva gewn. Now the Geneva gown is looked upon by high church clerics as, if not an unclean thing, at least one savouring of dissent and all which that implies. In order to get out of the difficulty the reverend gentleman appealed to the Law Courts to have the obnoxious conditions set aside, but, alas, the law declined to find a loophole for the incumbent, and declared the lady's testament quite valid.

Henry Powell, of Scarborough, in 1595 left £5000 in Consols, whose interest was to be divided amongst several persons connected with the church of Pocklington, provided that they would all take part in an annual service on the anniversary of his death. He put down tho price at which he valued their respective services as follows:—

The vicar was to have £3 and the clerk 10/; but the organist was to have £20, and each of the bell-ringers £5. The choristers were to number five, and every hoy was to have £5. Also all the old men and women who had attended church most .regularly during the year vptp to hare (if they attended his funeral anniversary, too) hot cross buns on tiood rriday, and plain loaves on Christmas Day, Easter Day, and Whitsunday.

A Xorth Countryman who died some time ago divided his estate equally between his wife and his sister, who had for years never spoken to one another, on condition that; for one month of every year they should live together, and that during the rest of the year they should meet six times and embrace each other.

There was a whimsical touch of malevolence in the will of Herr Bauer, a wealthy German, whoso wife had made his life miserable hy her violent antipathy to tobacco, of which he smoked large quantities. Ho bequeathed her half his estate on condition that for the rest of her life she never smoked less than six cigareetes a day and the whole of it from the day on which she married a man who should smoke a certified pound of tobacco a week.

Arthur Williams, of Birmingham, left £200 to his wife, provided that, if she married again, the one to "step into his shoes" should not be a Birmingham man. Evidently Mr. Williams had an idea that one Birmingham man is enough for any woman to be blest with on this earth— though why so is a puzzle. There is grim, sardonic humour in some -wills, as, for instance, in that of Lieutenant-Colonel Nash, who left an annuity to the bell-ringers of Bath to toll dolefully on each anniversary of the gallant colonel's wedding day.

The will of a man who died about twenty years ago takes high rank among testator humorists of this type. He bequeathed £(!0,000 to his wife on these grimly ironical conditions: "When I remember that the only happy times 1 have enjoyed have been when my wife sulked with mc, and when I remember that, as she was nearly always sulking, my* life with her has been fairly happy, I am tempted to forget the repulsion the sight of her face inspired mc with, and leave her the sum of £60,000 on condition that 6he spends two hours a day at my graveside for ten years in company with my sister, whom I know she loathes more than she does myself."

An American who died some time ago, leaving £.10,000 and a pretty wife, bequeathed the widow his whole fortune, with the stipulation that she must not appear in public unveiled. If s he did so, eh e must forfeit £200, and a similar sum if she smiled at a man, or allowed a man to take her to a place of public entertainment.

But for sheer, downright eccentricity it would be difficult to beat the will of a gentleman named Underhill, who was buried at Whittlesea, in Cambridgeshire, so long ago as 1773. He left very precise instructions as to his funeral, and £COOO to his sister on the condition that she carried them out. Th e relative was to follow his corpse, but only six gentlemen whom ho named, to each of"whom he desired his sister to give ten guineas, and to request of them not to come in black clothes. According to his instructions, as soon as the burial service was j ended, an arch was turned over the coffin, in which was placed a small piece of white marble bearing the inscription: I "Non omnis moriar, 1773." Then the I six gentlemen who followed him to tho grave sang the last stanza of the tweni tieth ode of the second book of "Horace."

The coffin was painted green: and the' deceased was laid in it with all bis clothes on. Under his head was placed Saundon's "Horace," at his feet Bentley's "Milton"; in his right hand was a small Greek Testament, in his left a little edition of- "Horace"; while Bentley's edition of "Horace" was placed under him. After the ceremony was over, the six gentlemen went back to the house and after a cold supper, sang the thirty-first ode of the first book of "Horace," drank a cheerful glass and went home about eight o'clock.

"■ft hich done," were the concluding words of this eccentric will, "I would hav e them take a cheerful • glass, and think no more of John Underhill."

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