ECCENTRIC WILLS.
- " I ""HE making of wills by most people may; that this was quite contrary to custom, he
•*be said to be a thing that is unpleas- said, with heartfelt sympathy for his possible ant to do at best, — indeed, so unpleasant is successor : " Aye, but him as gets her '11 the idea associated with will-making that deserve it." many neglect to make wills altogether and A testator has considerable latitude given die intestate. Whimsical people, when they him in the expression of his wishes in his do make wills, usually produce characteristic will; and as he is not afraid of libel suits in documents. They rarely consult a lawyer, what he writes or dictates in such an instru fearing, no doubt, that he might counsel them ment, he can be very caustic as well as very against doing what they intend But whimsi just. This is well illustrated in the follow cal 'bequests have sometimes served a useful ing extract from the will of John Hylett purpose, and instances are not unknown of Stow, an Englishman, which was proved in such bequests having been made by lawyers 1781 : "I hereby direct my executors to lay themselves. out five guineas in the purchase of a picture Here is a case in point. William J. of the viper biting the benevolent hand of Haskett, a lawyer, who died in New York the person who saved him from perishing in some years ago, left a will containing this the snow, if the same can be bought for the curiously worded clause : " I am informed money; and that they do, in memory of me, that there is a society composed of young present it to , a king's counsel, men connected with the public press; and whereby he may have frequent opportunities as in early life I was connected with the of contemplating on it, and by a comparison papers, I have a keen recollection of the between that and his own virtue be able to toils and troubles that bubbled then and form a certain judgment which is best and ever will bubble for the toilers of the world most profitable, — a grateful remembrance in their pottage caldron; and as I desire to of past friendship and almost parental regard. thicken with a little savory herb their thin or ingratitude and insolence. This I direct broth in the shape of a legacy, I do hereby to be presented to him in lieu of a legacy of bequeath to the New York Press Club of the £3000 I had by a former will, now revoked city of New York giooo, payable on the and burned, left him." If the lawyer named was present at the reading of that will, his death of Mrs. Haskett." There is probably no more profitable class feeling may well be imagined. of business to a lawyer than that arising out M. Colombies, a merchant of Paris, had his of disputes about wills; and the following ex revenge on a former sweetheart, a lady of tract from a French advocate's will pithily Rouen, when he left her by his will a legacy expresses his opinion of his clients: "I give of .£i2OO for having, some twenty years be 100,000 francs to the local madhouse. I got fore, refused to marry him, "through which," this money out of those who pass their lives states the will, "I was enabled to live inde in litigation; in bequeathing it for the use of pendently and happily as a bachelor." lunatics I only make restitution." An uncommon case of eccentricity on the It is recorded of a rich old English farmer part of an Englishman occurred something that, in giving instructions for his will, he over fifty years ago. His will contained the directed that a legacy of £100 be given to his following unique paragraph : " I bequeath to wife. Being informed that some distinction my monkey, my dear and amusing Jacko, was usually made in case the widow married the sum of £,io sterling per annum, to be again, he doubled the sum; and when told employed for his sole and exclusive use and
