HUMOUR IN WILLS

Evening Star, Issue 20311, 21 October 1929, Page 2

HUMOUR IN WILLS

MANY QUAINT BEQUESTS LEGACIES TO AHIMAIS Strange as it may seem many people with money or other property fail to indicate what they desire should happen to these possessions when they die. It is estimated that fully 60 per cent, of those who die fail to make a will, and of the remainder very few make their will correctly. Even famous legal men Lave left wills, which were not legally sound, and many hitter wrangles among the prospective bencliciarics have ensued. Only the other days, says Mr Francis J. Grant, in writing in an English newspaper, Mr Justice Hill expressed the opinion that information on the proper way to make a will should bo furnished to scholars in secondary schools. Frojn the earliest times it has been customary to leave one’s possessions to relatives or friends, and wills made as long ago as 2530 n.c. have been discovered in excavations in Egypt. The will of Sennacherib, King of Assyria from 702 to 6SO u.c., was found intact in the royal library at Koyunjik. Many people look upon a will as a vehicle by means of which redress may be obtained for real or imaginary grievances. Napoleon, for instance, let his vindictive "hatred of Englahd run riot in his will, as this extract shows: “I die prematurely, assassinated by the English oligarchy.” COMICAL CLAUSES IN WILLS. Scarcely a week passea without the newspapers referring to a will in which a husband leaves his fortune to his wife on condition that she does not marry again, or perhaps a father leaves his money to sons and daughters, providing they do not change their religion. Some very comical wills have been made by people addicted to drink. A Berlin man, evidently anxious that his funeral should not be the occasion of funereal conduct on the part of his friends, directed that they should take turn in roiling a barrel of beer after the cortege. When the usual formalities at the burial were conducted, the friends had to consume the beer before leaving his grave. Another inebriate left £I,OOO to His nurse in recognition of her ability to drive away a pink monkey from his bedside; and a similar sum.to his cook, who excelled, he asserted, in extracting snakes from the depth of the soup plate.

A characteristic clause was contained in the will of Francois Rabelais, the great French satirist. “I have no available property. I owe a great deal. The rest 1 give to the poor. ’ Qualms of conscience must have prompted the strange bequest of a French lawyer, who left £IO,OOO to a mental hospital, and described it as an act of restitution to: clients insane enough to seek his advice. Brigham Young, the Mormon leader, must have found will-mak-ing an enviable task, as he had about a million pounds to disburse between eighteen wives and some forty-eight children, AMUSING STORY OF AN EXECUTOU.

An amusing story is told of an old farmer, who became a trustee under the will of his friend, a grocer. After the latter’s death the farmer marched into the shop, and, addressing the widow, said, want that tub of butter and that lot of sugar, and all that other stuff.” Good gracious,” exclaimed iho widow, “ whatever for?” “ Iciunno.” replied the farmer, “ hutyon see I’m the executor of your husband’s will, and the lawyer has told me to carry out the provisions ” Quite a number of people leave large bequests to animals. Jonathan Jackson, of Columbus, Ohio, made provision in his will for the erection and maintenance of a home for cats. The building was to have several dormitories, grounds for the- pussies’ exercise, and

a gentle sloping roof complete with rat holes to provide the inmates with a means of satisfying their sporting instincts.

As the testator considered the sound of the accordion was like that of the cat’s voice, he directed that the animals were to be regaled daily with concerts of accordion music in a specially constructed theatre. A lady left an annual sum of £2OO to be used in caring for three goldfish. LEGACY OF £50,000 TO HORSES. It is difficult to imagine the reasons which prompted an eccentric Hungarian nobleman to bequeath his entire estate worth approximately £50,000 to twelve draught horses, but he dicl, much to the displeasure of his relatives, who unsuccessfully sought to have the will set aside on the ground that he was mad. Another unsuccessful attempt to have a will declared void was that made by the relations of a Frenchman, who, declaring that all his countrymen were fools and dastards, left his fortune to the people of London, and directed that his body was to be cast into the sea a mile away from the coast. A wealthy merchant of Crone-sur-Marne set aside a sum of two thousand francs to provide a prize for the winner of a' pig race, the pigs to be ridden by men or boys. A biting commentary on the subject of clergymen’s salaries was made by the retort of a parson’s widow when asked for an inventory of her husband’s estate. “ The major portion of my late husband’s estate,” she wrote, “ was invested in heavenly securities, the value of which have been variously declared in this world, and highly taxed by the various churches, hut never realised.” Then followed a list of some' of his deeds, none of which had a cash vglue. NO STOUT WOMEN WANTED. “ No stout women need apjply for admission,” was the stern injunction of an American bachelor, who left £IO.OOO “ for the erection and administration of a home for women between the ages of sixteen and twenty-eight, of small stature, bright, ambitious, and good to look at. Mr Cecil Rhodes, who _did so much for the Empire in Africa, instructed his trustees to set aside a sum of £IO,OOO for various improvements to his old college of Oriel. Oxford, and established several Rhodes scholarships of £3OO a year, tenable for three years at any college in Oxford. In common with R. L. Stevenson, Rhodes expressed the desire to he buried among mountains or on a hilltop. The money for the Nobel yearly awards was provided by Alfred Bernard Nobel, the Swedish inventor and philanthropist, who directed in his will that a capital sum be put aside to yield five sums of about £7,700; those amounts to be awarded each to those who shall be judged to have made the most important invention or discovery inthe realm of physics, chemistry, physiology, or medicine, and to those who shall have produced in literature the most distinguished work of an idealistic tendency, or who shall have best promoted the interests of international peace.