that will have its way, execute an instrument, or better, have a lawyer prepare one for exe cution, whereby you make a disposition of your property to take effect after your death. It is absolutely necessary to die to have your last will and way legally. It may not be facetious to remark that it is wise to put your will in writing, if you have the time. In the written form it is al ways much easier to ascertain the intention of the testator and to interpret his exact lan guage, and that is what the lawyers and the courts will seek to discover after your death. If you are unlucky enough to leave a verbal will, some court may be compelled to declare that if you could have made a written will, the verbal one is of no avail. If through some eccentricity you deliberately select the verbal method and live a week or two after wards, you will have had your wilful way to no purpose, for your will is not good. The best plan in making a verbal will is to die just about the time you have finished mak ing, as it were, your verbal seal to it. Don't make any conditional wills unless you want the heirs to have as much trouble in obtaining your money as you had in mak ing it. Don't fill up all the crevices of your will with " ifs." Should you take a little trip and leave as a memorandum, " if I should not get back, do as I say in this paper," and then come back sick and live a week or two, such paper will not answer the purpose of a will. If you have any regard for the direc tions made on the paper, never come home alive. First and foremost, before making your will, do be certain that you are not crazy. Next, that you have the testamentary capa city to make the instrument. Don't ask that fellow that you swapped horses with last spring, or him who decorated your barn with its fringe of lightning-rods, whether you have a sound mind. They already are witnesses for the contestants. To be sure that you have this testamentary capacity consists in having a sound mind and dispos ing memory, a full and intelligent knowledge
of the act you are engaged in, of the prop erty you possess, and the disposition you de sire to make of it. • Inter nos, you can be a little crazy, yet it may not hurt your will if you are careful not to publish the fact, for it may be with you as with the old man who said he had been crazy for two years, but no one ever found it out because he had not told any one about it. So you may be the kind patron of a cat hospital, or the would-be inventor of per petual motion, still these might not count against you provided you have the business capacity, co-existent with your delusion, on such subjects as are requisite to make a will. There is a Charybdis to this Scylla. You may not be crazy even a particle, yet be in competent to make a will. Imbecility of intellect, though short of insanity, enfeebled in mind, so as to imagine yourself to be pos sessed of immense wealth and disposing of what you have in consequence in an erratic manner, may be sufficient to upset your will. If you have some bad habits, they may be brought to light, but will hardly affect your will. You may indulge in various brands of "Oh! be joyful," but if you are sober when you make your will and are careful to have that fact provable, your testamentary capa city may be saved. You may lie about your property when pestered with gratuitous ad vice what to do with your money, or, like a certain old woman, you may take a mischie vous delight in deceiving your nieces and nephews, promising your estate to them all; but when it is found out that you have de ceived them all but one, it will not affect your testamentary capacity. Having with great pains ascertained that you have not been crazy your whole life, but have the necessary testamentary capacity, you must next be careful not to permit your self to be imposed upon by fraud and undue influence. If you would wish to leave your estate to some warm friend, your lawyer or doctor, and succeed in persuading the re cipient to draw the will, don't do it. It will be shown beyond doubt that you were a
