Freakish Wills

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30562, 3 October 1964, Page 16

Freakish Wills

ISpeciallg written for "The Press” by

ARNOLD WALL)

TT has been noted that staid, humdrum people sometimes reveal a certain eccentricity in their last testaments, sometimes the spirit seems quite impish and absurd; I put these samples in the window. A big b<x>k might well be filled with them; two of mine are pretty recent, one, not at all absurb though quaint. Is very old.

A well-meaning testator was reported, some years ago, to have left a sum of money to be devoted to the persuasion of poor people to eat their bread and butter with the butter-side down, having observed that when eaten in this way the butter “went further” while the eater got more pleasure from the act. How exactly the persuasion was to be applied was not explained, that, I suppose, was to be a job for the executors.

Less eccentric, but just as charitable, was the provision of money “to help poor people to buy false teeth," but the canny solicitor did not word it in that way, it was to enable necessitous persons to purchase artificial dentures." That provided me with an example of a certain tendency in our language. When Stephen Gardener, housebreaker, was arrested, in 1724, and liberated for lack of evidence, the constable of Newgate warned him: “Beware how you come here again or this bellman will certainly sing his verses over you.” He referred to an ancient practice which dated- from about 1590 and was apparently still kept up as late as 1724.

Robert Done, merchant tailor of London, gave £5O to the parish church of St. Sepulchre, “that after the general sessions of London, when the prisoners remain in gaole, as condemned men to death, the clarke, that is, the parson, of the church, should come in the night time ... to the window of the prison where they lye, and there ringing certain toles with a hand-bell ... he doth afterwards put them in mind of their present condition . . . desiring them to be prepared therefore as they ought to be.” Earlier at that time, or some time later, the custom was for the bellman to go, on the night before the execution, stand under Newgate Prison, ring his bell, and repeat tjie following verses

as a piece of friendly advice, to the unhappy wretches under sentence of death: All 1/ou that In the condemn d cell do lie Prepare yon. for tomorrow you mu>t die Watch all. and pray, the hour i< drawing neai That you before the Almighly mutt appear Kzamlne well yourtclres. in time repent, That you may not t'etemul /lamej be sent And when St. Sepulchred bell tomorrow tolls The Lord above have mcrey on yoUr souls! Past twelve o'clock) It Is sad to relate that Stephen Gardener did not heed the constable’s warning; he resumed his bad practices after his release, was soon caught and duly hanged on February 3, 1724. We are not told whether the bellman duly performed his office on the occasion, or for how long after that date the old custom was kept up. or what ultimately became of Robert Done's £5O.