HUMOUR IN WILLS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20384, 12 October 1929, Page 2 (Supplement)

HUMOUR IN WILLS.

MANY QUAINT BEQUESTS*

LEGACIES TO ANIMALS,

AMERICAN OATS' HOUSE,

PRIZE FOR A PIG RACE.'

Strange as it may seem many pe&plg with money or other property fail to indicate what they desiro should happen to theso possessions when they die. It j s estimated that fully sixty per cent, of those who die fail to make a will, and of tho remainder very few muko. their will correctly. Even famous legal men hava left wills which wero not legally sound and many bitter wrangles among' the proi spectivo beneficiaries havo ensued.

Only tho ottfer day, 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. From the earliest times it has been customary to leave one's possessions to relatives or friends, and wills rnado as long ago as 2550 B.C. have been discovered in excavations in Egypt. The will of Se.inacherib, King of Assyria from 702 to 680 8.C., was found intact in the royal library at Koyunjik. Many people look upon a will as g vehicle by means of which redress may b« obtained for real or imaginary grievances. Napoleon, for instance, lei his vindictive hatred of England run riot in his will, as this extract shows: "I die prematurely, assassinated by the English oligarch;/."

Oomlcal Clauses la Wills

Scarcely a week passes without tha. 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 tako turns iu rolling a barrel, of beer after the cortege. When the usual formalities at the burial were conducted, the friends had 'to consume tha beer before leaving his grave. Another inebriate left £IOOO 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 ex. celled, ho asserted, in extracting .snakes from the depth of the soup, plate. A characteristic clause was contained in the will of Francois Kabelais, the crest French satirist. " I have no available property. I owe a great deal. The rest I 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. Urigham Young, the Mormon leader, must havo found will-making an enviable task, as he had about a million pounds to disburse between eighteen wives and some forty-eight children. ■ 'T Amusing Story of an Executor.

An amusing story is told of an old farmer, who became a trustee under tha will of his friend, a grocer. Aftetf the letter's death, the farmer marched into the shop, and addressing the widow, said, " I want that tub of butter and that lob of sugar, and all that other stuff." " Good gracious,"' exclaimed th® widow. " vrhatever for?" "I dunno," -.eplied the farmer, " buS vou see I'm the executor of your hus« kind's will, and the lawyer has told m$ to carry out the provisions.' Quite* a number of people leave largfc bequests to animals, Jonathan Jackaonv "of Columbus, Ohio, made provision in hii will for the erection and maintenance ofj a home for cats,_ The building was td have several dormitories, groups' for tha pussies' exercise and a gentle sloping roof complete with rut holes to 'the inmates with a means of satisfying their sporting instincts. | As the testator considered the souna of the accordion warlike that of tha cat's voice he directed that the animals were to be regaled daily with concerts of accordein music in a specially constructed theatre. A lady ; left an annual sum of £2OO to be used in caring for seventy pounds to three goldfish. . Legacy o! £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 did, 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 <1 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 cast into tho sea a mile away from tho coast. A wealthy merchant of Cionc-sur-Marna set aside a sum of two thousand francs to provide a pri/.e for the winner of » pig race, the pigs to bo ridden by men or bovs. . f«„«i 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 8 estate." she wrote, " was heavenly securities, the value of wh'ta have boon variously dcclnrea in # world, and highly taxed by .the various Churches, but never realised. Then lowed a list of some of his deeds, none of which had a cash value.

No Stout Women Wanted.

"No stout, women need apply for a <J« mission." was tho stern injunction of an American bachelor, who left £IO,OOO for tho erection and administration of for women between the ages of si - and twenty-eight, of small stature, bright, ambitious and good to look at... . • Mr. Cecil Rhodes, who did so much MJ tho Kinpiro in Africa, instructed trustees to set aside a sum of for various improvements to.his old c lege of Oriel, Oxford, and c ; s several Rhodes scholarships of £3OO a >ear tenable for three years at any college itt Oxford. In common with I\. *(• Steve son, Rhodes expressed tho desire buried among mountains or on a l °The money for the Nobol yofidv awards was provided by Alfred Be' l '*" f >n-onist* tho Swedish inventor and T ? h \ ,n ° th ™g t# i who directed in his will that a cai sum be put aside to yield fn ir( W about £7700; those awounits each to thosa who shall bo P d S e havo made tho most important lnve or discovery in the realm of .pbysK* chemistry, physiology or medicine, to those who shall have Produced in li ture tho most distinguished work 0 idealistic tendency, or who shall best promoted the interests of row national peace. ■