MAKING A WILL.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1749, 13 September 1905, Page 62

MAKING A WILL.

When a layman essays to make his own will, as many do, no one is surprised if he does not achieve more success than the average amateur who undertakes to do the work of a professional. Yet if careful inquiry were made it would probably ©how that what one English Judge scornfully termed “home-made wills” are not largely more productive of litigation than the wills drawn by trained experts. As often as not it is the disappointment or the wrongheadedness of the persons who benefit by or think they ought to have benefited by a will which is responsible for forcing wills into court. Still, in the drawing of a will, as in other matters, the greatest skill and the widest exprience may go astray. What more extraordinary instance of this could be found than that of the Lord St. Leonards, who was Lord Chancellor in 1852. It was this eminent Judge who said, “It is quite shocking to reflect upon the litigation which has been occasioned by men making their own wills,” yet when his Lordship had passed away, and another Chancellor sat in his woolsack, there was litigation about his will, and that will had been drawn by himself. A similar fate has befallen the will of the late Lord St. Holier, which has also become the subject of discussion in the very court in which he was President for so many years. Perhaps the most patriotic and at the same time the most extraordinary lawyer’s will, that ever came before a court was that of Sir Joseph Jekyll. That gentleman left the whole of his fortune —.a not inconsiderable one —to be applied to paying off the national debt of England. His relatives disputed the

legality of such a will, and it was set aside, the court holding Sir Joseph. JekylPa patriotic intentions as an evidence of mental weakness. Lord Mansfield, in delivering judgment, said: “Sir Joseph, was a good man, and a good lawyer, but his bequest was a very foolish one. He might as well have attempted to stop the middle arch of Blackfriars Bridge with his full-bottom-ed wig.” Apropos of Judges and their wills, it may be noted that the present Chief Justice of Australia once stated that the whole of his will was written on a piece of note-paper. Lord Mansfield, who had property of the value of half-a-million to dispose, wrote his will on half a sheet of note-paper. Sir James Stephens improved even on that, for he compressed his intentions in the simple and effective words: “I give all my. property to my wife, whom I appoint my sole executrix.” The will of the late Lord Bussell, of Killowen, was also a model of brevity—he disposed of nearly £150,000 in about a dozen lines. A historic example to the contrary was Lord Grimthorpe. who had no fewer than fourteen codicils to his will.