MAKING YOUR WILL.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLIII, Issue 97, 22 April 1909, Page 6

MAKING YOUR WILL.

POWER AND PRIVILEGES OF THE "DEAD HAND/

(By Geo. A. Mac Donald.) It is curious that in Great Britain you are more free to dispose of your property after you are dead than you are during your lifetime. It was not always so. There was a time when, as with the Romans, and as it still is in-Trance and some other countries, a man had to make certain provisions for his near relatives before indulging his preference and eccentricities. You can dispose of your property by will as you like ; there are no .limitations. During your life your wile and children have definite and easily enforced rights of maintenance against you You can be made—by disagreeable police court processes—to support your parents, and oven your grandparents and grandchildren. But in your will you may roam fancy 1 You may leave all to your son and disinherit your daughters—or vice versa. A man may provide for ins mistress and leave his wife penniless. You may endow a guild or hospital or a dogs' home, and disregard the natural expectations of your relatives. In a word, the law concerns itself only vith the formalities of execution, and cares nothing as to the contents ot a will Even the restrictions upon grits to what are popularly known as "superstitious uses"—a relic or the days when your comfort and surroundings in the next world were thought to depend very much on what you did for the Church in your testamentary dispositions—disappeared a few years ago.

DELUSIONS

Of course,, a will can be upset on the ground that the testator was ot unsound mind at the time of making it, and you might think that dispositions which disregard natural obligations and shock the conscience would be evidence of insanity. Lawyers will tell you, however, that this form of attack is not as simple as it sounds. It is not enough to prove eccentricities, unreasonable likes and dislikes, and delusions. The 3udge will want to be satisfied that they went so far that the testator, did not j-eally know what he was doing—had not "a disposing mind/ in fact. He might have made a better will, the Court agrees; the judge could make a better will, so could the jury; counsel, even, for the conflicting parties could draw up a juster will and endorse it on their briefs. None ot that matters. The man had a right to do what he liked with his own. The Court is not satisfied that he did not know what he was* doing. So the hospital gets its new wing, or the town where he was born gets ltjs art gallery, while his wife goes back to her mother, his daughters become governesses, and his sons go to strengthen the British Empire in the colonies. That is, of course, an extremo case, but it may happen any day. i -I i <m. Not many years ago a lady lett a large fortune for division amongst various philanthropic bodie ; s to the detriment of nephews and nieces, who had built up confident expectations with regard to it.. She had enjoyed for years a deference, a family influence—had been the recipient of dutiful attentions on the strength of what she might be expected to do with her fortune, HARD TO UPSET. In attacking the will on the score of delusions, it was alleged that the deceased lady had for years regulated her day's doings by mystic signs discovered, in the tea-leaves at the bottom of her cup, that a large white rabbit installed in the drawing-room was supposed by her to embody the soul of her father, and that she was in the habit of repairing at sunset to a pond and making obeisance' to the frogs. In justification of these practices the supporters of the will were able to instance existing creeds with hierarchy and temples complete, flanked with believers and buttressed by endowments, where such things are matters of ordinary orthodox faith. The habits of the deceased lady seemed startling at first, but there was- nothing new..about them. The Chaldean 'would have understood omens, -and the Er^vptian the frogs: Pythagoras would ' have appreciated the white rabbit. . _ There was a time when we burned Papists and ignored heathen beliefs. But to-day you do not disenfranchise a man for believing in transubstantiation, and you cannot send him to a lunatic asylum for believing in the transmigration of souls. The boundaries of belief have been obscured, creeds are often regarded as local prejudices, and the courts of law are not dogmatic. So the power of making p t will is to-day in this country perhaps more -unfettered than r-ver it has Leon, and it is matter for satisfaction- tli.it riP'Ot, thr> wh-nb. it is wifely and c^.scientioi-Hy -:-:<:■ •v.-cd.

How often does a man make his will? Lawyers say that the average careful man makes it three times— first after he has married, then when he realises that his family is growing up, lastly when he feels that his end is drawing near. The middle will is usually the wisest one; the other two having the defects characteristic of the ages at which they are made. The honeymoon will is a provision for what then seems a remote contingency, and is made at a time when affection rather than judgment is uppermost. The senile will overreaches itself in detail, and is apt to display features of distrust which detract from the benefits intended. PRACTICAL HINTS. It must be a grievance to some people that they can-not be present at the reading of their own walls, so that they might point the moral—so to speak." A little reflection as to the circumstances in which testamentary dispositions are usually published ought to convince people of the mischief of vacillating codicils. If you wish to revoke a legacy, make a fresh will and burn the old one. It may not be inappropriate to conclude with a word of suggestion. The State makes a will for the man or woman who dies intestate. In other words, his property is divided at once and finally among his nearest relations. Take the hint. There is a natural desire to play the part of proI vidence after one is dead—to continue to control one's possessions. But the desire is a futile one. : "We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out." The "dead hand" regulating the. succession, tying up the property, seeking to control its expenditure, often blocks the way and keeps lawyers busy. You wish to protect your children apainst their own indiscre- ! tions, and it .is very natural. But is it not almost presumptuous to suppose you can forsee the state of affairs twenty years after you are dead? You must trust someone— either the State, or your trustees, or your own children. The law permits you at your death to tie up your capital during any lives then in being I and for twenty-one years after. Practically this means that the distribution must take place either to your children or to your grandchildren. Which do you think you ought to t rU st—the children you have known and trained or the grandchildren you have not known and trained?— Daily Chronicle.