DOCTOR'S BELIEF

New Zealand Herald, Volume 78, Issue 24135, 29 November 1941, Page 12

DOCTOR'S BELIEF

LIFE AND ELECTRICITY BEQUESTS RAISE PROBLEM SUPREME COURT DECISION (0.C.) WELLINGTON. Friday Because of a belief that lie had discovered that electricity and the vital force or principle which produced the life of animals and vegetables were one and the same power, an Australian doctor who died in 1911. made a provision in his will for £3OO to be offered annually bv the Royal College of Physicians, London, for a written thesis or a prize essay relating to the connections between the forces. Opinions apparently differed, however, and the bequest was not accepted. The estate to-day is valued at about £20,000, and this bequest and other matters were! raised by an originating summons in the Supreme Court before Mr. Justice Ostler. The plaintiff was the Public Trustee and the defendants the Attorney-Gen-eral, the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, the Royal Society in London, Lawrence St. Leonards Humphrey, of Marton (trustee of the will of Annie Curl, of Christchurch, widow of Samuel Matthias Curl, retired doctor, of Waverley, New South Wales), Edward Samuel Curl, and Edith Ilowell Curl, hoth of Sussex, England. Provisions of the Will Dr. Curl died at Sydney on April 17, 1911, and his will, dated July 18, 1900, left his estate to his wife and appointed her and Alfred Lyon, barrister and solicitor, of Marion, executors. After their deaths the president of the Royal College of Physicians and the president of the Anthropological Institute were to be executors and all the estate was to be held in trust for ever by the college. The censors of the college, if agreeable to the conditions, were to offer the £3OO as a prize every year, and the balance of the money derived from the estate was to he offered to the Anthropological Institute, to be used as a prize for the best essay upon the discoveries in an* thropology made in the previous two years. If the college and the institute objected, the executors were to offer the_ money and property to the Royal Society or any other scientific society, to bo dealt with as desired by the testator. The Royal College of Physicians renounced all right and title to probate and benefits under the will, and the Anthropological Institute renounced right to the probate and execution of the will, Judge's Findings His Honor found that the trusts were separate, and that the renunciation of the first trust did not affect the second trust to the institute, Each trust was practicable, but it was rightly pointed out by counsel that it would be more useful in another way. It seemed to him that, as the way prescribed by the testator was practicable, the Court had no power to apply the cypres doctrine. The cypres doctrine is that when there is charitable intent, but the expressed wishes of a testator are not practicable, the Court approves a sobeme as near as possible to the testator's desires. The most ho could do was to sanction a scheme which filled up "machinery" gaps, added His Honor. The Royal Society was entitled to act if either the Royal College of Physicians or the Anthropological Institute declined to act, The sum of £3OO should he offered to the Royal Society, but so far as a sche.me was concerned he could not see that he had any power to make a greater alteration than that already directed in the ease of the Anthropological Institute. The institute and the Royal Society will submit draft schemes for the approval of the Court.