The Eccentricities of Testators.
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THE ECCENTRICITIES OF TESTATORS. AHUXDRED years ago, English law yers, when dining together, used to drink to the health of "the schoolmaster," for schoolmasters at that period often made wills for their friends, and by their ignorance of legal technicalities gave the legal profes sion a considerable amount of remunerative business. At a later date, a regular toast was "to our best friend—the man who makes his own will." Prosaic as most last wills and testaments are—except to fortunate lega tees—there are many amusing instances of eccentric bequests and curious disposals of property. Some years since a Mr. Sanborn desired that in death, as in life, his body should pro claim the glory of the Republic. He left five thousand dollars to the late Professor Agassiz, in return for which the latter was, by a scientific process, set forth in the will, to tan his—the testator's—skin into leather, and from it have a drum made. Two of the most suitable bones of his body were to be made into drumsticks, and with these a Mr. War ren Simpson—to whom Mr. Sanborn left the bulk of his property—was "on every seventeenth of June to repair to the foot of Bunker Hill, and at sunrise beat on the drum," the parchment of which had been made out of the testator's skin, the stirring strains of "Yankee Doodle." A somewhat similar request was made by z German gentleman in 1887. The differ ence, however, consists in the fact that no annual commemoration of the deceased was required. The testator died at Pittsburg, and by his will directed that his body should be cremated and the ashes forwarded to the German consul at New York, who was to give them to the captain of the steamship "Elbe." When in mid-Atlantic, the captain was required to persuade a passenger to ascend to the topmast, holding in one hand
the funeral urn, and to scatter the ashes to the four winds of heaven. The passenger was to be requested by the captain to dress himself in nautical costume before commenc ing his duties. These directions were faith fully carried out. The instructions for the funeral of an Englishman named John Un derwood were decidedly curious. He willed that he was to be buried in a green coffin, with a copy of Horace under his feet, one of Milton under his head, a Greek testament in his right hand and a small volume of Horace in his left. Six friends, who were not to wear black clothes, were to follow him to the grave, and were there to sing a verse of the twentieth ode of the second book of Horace. After this they were to "take a cheerful glass and think no more of John Underwood. Wills may occasionally be used as evidence of the mixed blessings of the matrimonial state. An English nobleman said in his will: "I give and bequeath to the worst of women, whom I unfortunately married, forty-five brass half-pence, which will buy her a pullet for supper." A physician, in Scotland, dying about a dozen years ago, left the whole of his estate to his two sisters; and then came the following extraordinary clause: "To my wife, as a recompense for deserting me and leaving me in peace, I expect my said sister Elizabeth to make a gift of ten shillings ster ling, to buy a handkerchief to weep on after my decease." Another Scotchman be queathed to his wife the sum of sixty thou sand pounds on condition that she under takes to pass two hours a day at my grave side for the ten years following my decease, in company with her sister, whom I have reason to know she loathes worse than she does me." Another husband, an English man this time, stated that he would have left •his widow ten thousand pounds if she had allowed him to read his evening paper in
