Queer Wills

Manawatu Times, Volume 69, Issue 6, 8 January 1944, Page 7

Queer Wills

The recent ruling that a letter card written by a soldier is a valid will is not the lirst time legal experts have puzzled over soldiers’ wills. In fact, during the last war a letter written by a soldier to his father was accepted as a valid will. The pay book, of course, provides space for a proper will, but at any rate, in the last war some soldiers did not take it seriously. Entries such as 4 • all to Lizzie ” or 44 spend it on beer ’ disturbed legal pundits at the base. Actually considerable latitude has always been allowed soldiers in the face of the enemy. In one case in England a soldier worth half a million pounds disposed of his fortune in 13 words. The British Courts accepted this will, despite the fact that it had not been witnessed. Odd wills are innumerable. In one case, a will properly drawn up on parchment in the best possible style spent some years under the sea as the result of onemy action. When drawn up it was a splendid document some two feet across. When recovered it had shrunk to a few inches. A will may be written on almost anything. Somerset House boasts one written on a shirt front, another on a paper bag, and a third written on the photograph of a pretty girl, inscribed with the words 4 4 I leave all to her.” Identification discs have been used on several occasions. In one case a sailor lost in H.AI.S. Indefatigable at Jutland, engraved a fairly lengthy will in minute script on his disc. A will has even been written on an egg shell, though it was invalid for lack of a witness.

The greatest complication will ensue when a certain individual dies who has had his will tattooed on Hs own back. It is possible that photographic evidence may be accepted. Tolstoy created some little puzzle when he wrote his will in 191 u on the stump of a tree at Yasnaia Poliana. The first clause says, 4 4 Bury me where I die; if in town then in the cheapest cemetery, cheapest coffin, like a pauper. No flowers, no wreaths, no speeches.” Tragedy sometimes lies behind strange wills. A 6tone with a few short sentences scratched on it was the last will and testament of a stonemason who lay dying, trapped by a fall of stone. In his last moments Oley J. Kalloch wrote his will in a lonely camp 50 miles from Cooktown, in North (Queensland. He had been prospecting when he was bitten by a snake. He scrawled the following will on an old newspaper with a piece of charcoal, 4 ‘Bitten by a big brown snake. About done for. I leave everything to Neilly Jenkins. Oley J. Kalloch.” Scientific progress has added the phonographic will to worry legal experts. Christopher Stone, the 8.8. C. announcer, has made a record will in this medium. Difficulties arise. What happens if anybody wishes to refer to it? Moreover, a will is supposed to be visible. Are the undulations of sound on a gramophone record “visible”? Anyway, an elderly clergyman inscribed his will in this way as long ago as 1929. The little gathering after his death switched on the gramophone. There was no mistaking his voice. He appeared to be right in their midst. They all drowned the will in loud sobbing. “My clock 1 give to the railway station,” said the dead man, “and relatives can share the rest in equal proportion so long as they do not quarrel between them.” It was obvious he had, not been prompted by a lawyer.