Oddities in Wills.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume XX, Issue 2030, 25 February 1887, Page 1 (Supplement)

Oddities in Wills.

Simple a matter as it really is, lawyers have not always b.-cn anu.H-s did in drawing their own \\i:!>. Loril !is. L-.oaarde, High Chancellor of England, who as, Edward Sugden, wan U,o most eminent chancery lawyer in Bughnd, and who, with a number of law books, one particularly with a very elaborate chapter on drawing wills, drew his own will, and it required an expensive lawsuit and a decision of a court c.f chancery to give it proper effect. The will of Lord Westbury, another Lord High Chancellor, drawn by himself, met with the same fate. 1 could give many similar instances/ There have been devises to animals or lor their benefit which have been valid to cats, dogs, horses, and even parrots. Not unfreqnsntly people have undertaken to show their spite and hatred, and sometimes their humor, in wills. The will of Lord Pembroke in the seventeenth century has several items of that kind —for instance: “ I give nothing to my Lord Save, and 1 do make this legacy willingly because 1 know that ha will faithfully discharge it unto the poor. Item—l give up the ghost.” Lord Bacon had no property to leave, but he left a regular executed will, in which he bequeathed his name and memory “ to man’s charitably speeches, to foreign nations and the next ages.” Shakespeare left an elaborate will, which contains a clause that has puzzled the Shakr■pearorma not a little. “ 1 give unto my wife my second best bed, with tiro furniture.” Why did he only give Ann Hathaway hia second best, ami not bis best bed t Nothing else did she get, and the world has sought in vain to know the reason Lord Nelson left a will, drawn just before the battle of Trafalgar, by which he bequeathed Lady Hamilton and her daughter to his king and country, but neither king not country accepted the legacy, and they both came to want, Lady Hamilton dying in abject poverty. Napoleon in hie will left a handsome legacy to a wretch named Chatillon, who had attempted to a;sa=sinata Wellington. The will of IVibslais has this clause: "I owe a great deal; the rest I give to the poor.” His last words when dying were: “ I go to see the great Perhaps.” A famous French abbe had this pithy clausa in hia will; “To my steward Heave nothing, because ho has been in my service for eighteen years.” It is not unusual for a man to leave all his property to ins wife, with the proviso that if she marries again she is to have only what the law allows net. I have drawn a number of such v.-;i’f. Uov. M-.osh, the e*k-orated American rt u?::;u:in. did not treat his wife so. Hi had married vcy late in life Aan Randolph, a c-msm of Julia, of It moke, a woman much young's than l-.hnsd’, cud with whom ha iiv, '1 very happily. Ha bequeathed a very la dso ac income !o her, and (lien provided that in case she married again the income should b.i doubled. A eaMier or a s: i! :-r is allowed to make a nuujjp-itivo will—that is, a will by word of mouth, by which personal estate may bo diaposi d «.!, but you, being a eiv/i tu, must make yours in writing. It don’t m:a,ter much what the writing is on—it may bo cn a slate, or a tabb top, or even r. wall, though it is advisable that it U ,iav;s:ibl« that it ohnuld be on paper or parchment. You may write it and sign your name in pencil if you like, bat it is better to do it ink. Yuli i! oy male your will in Choctaw, if you happen to under vaml that language, or it may, i.n Uunit ; say.-: “be writ in ihu choicest I till::’.':’ ; you may write it in shorthand, or in abrev fat ions or in ciph'r, so long as you leave the key behind you. Courts are not manii-cts as to the spelling, and if your oriliogi iv.j.y j, not'perfectly ultra, they will not ink,..! u, if they can make it out. If you wish to drop into poetry, even that is permitted, ns the following care of a valid will shows: 1 give and bequeath, 1111011 I’m laid imcrßcatb, To ioy loving -.-inter: most dear, The whole of my ■. ter-', Were )’■ tivico as much more. Which < I mil, modne. s Ims granted to me. And that none may prevent This, my will and intent, Or occasion the least cl law racket, Wish a solemn appeal, I confirm sign and seal, Tiiis, the true aot and deed of Will Jacket. It seems strange that in FO small a country as England, and one which has been civilized so long, there should be found any new plants at this late day; yet a r-pecies of lichen, hitherto unknown to occur in Britain, was recently discovered in Westmoreland. Caliemm Roscidium is its Botanical name.] A French "physiologist has ascertained that vary poisonous extracts may be abtaintd from edible mushrooms, by treating them with chloroform or various ethers. Ho calls these poisons, cry-ptomaines. To their presence may be attributed the fatal effects which sometimes result from eating fungi which are ordinarily perfectly wholesome.