77/6' Law of the Land. being compos mentis may give away all his personal property so as to become himself, and leave his wife and children, penniless. A man's wife and children have no legal right to any part of his goods, and no fraud can be predicated of any act of his to de prive them of the succession, or as declared in one case, a husband may dispose of his chattels during coverture without his wife's consent and freed from every post-mortem claim by her. Such being the law as to personal prop erty in relation to the marital rights of hus band and wife, it is not a matter of surprise to find one, a man, who fitted the law to the facts of his circumstances and, in the opin ion of the court, to his own everlasting dis credit. It was found as a fact that the husband at least ten years before his death formed the fixed purpose that beyond the use of the house furniture and a comparatively small sum his wife, if she survived him, should receive no part of his estate if he could pre vent it, that he would so contrive to prevent her from receiving any part of his estate that he might at the same time continue to have the income and use of the same. His estate consisted entirely of personal prop erty, securities, stocks and bonds. To put his determination into being he executed a deed of trust by which the trustee was em powered during his life to pay over to him and for his use at the time he may receive the same, all the dividends or other income from all the property and securities, and he may deliver the securities in certain desig nated shares unto the several beneficiaries at such time or times as the trustee in his unfettered discretion shall think fit. The power of revocation of the trust was re
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served, evidently for the purpose that if the trustee should undertake to distribute to beneficiaries during the lifetime of the grantor that he might be forestalled by a revocation of the trust. The court in refusing to grant any relief to the widow said it was a case of hardship upon her and that the reasons of her counsel upon the barbarity of the law which permits a man to deprive his family upon his de cease of a fair allowance for their support were unanswered and unanswerable. It was however the law of the land that the deed of trust passed the entire legal title to the trustee. The grantor parted with the prop erty wholly and entirely, liven the reserva tion of the income to himself for life was optional with the trustee. The latter could have distributed the corpus of the estate to the beneficiaries the next day. The power of revocation reserved having never been exercised was precisely as if it had never existed. It was the creation of a present trust in favor of the beneficiaries. The se ' curities passed into the hands of the trustee with the trust deed. The transaction was complete, and the donor was absolutely denuded of his property and, as a man may do what he pleases with his personal estate during his life, the trust as created must be sustained. All of this marrying suggests the advice to those about to marry: " Don't, "or do with all you have to get out of it all there is in it. Ifyou " don't," there can be no trouble, unless you promised to do before you resolved the don't. It must be a don't from the very be ginning of things. If instead it is a do, let it be one in whjch there will be nothing due from you, then your courting will not end in courts.
