Wills— Quaint, Curious and Otherwise.
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WILLS — QUAINT, CURIOUS AND OTHERWISE. BY JOHN DE MORGAN. THE true index to a man's character is committed suicide in Central Park, New contained in his last will and testa York, and in his pocket was found a German ment," wrote an able jurist of the last cen story book, on the back of the frontispiece tury, and there is a great deal of truth in the was a carefully written will, which, though statement. The strange and erratic testa not witnessed, was admitted to probate, and ments presumably sane people leave behind the book is preserved as carefully as any of them when compelled to part with the wealth the parchment testaments drawn by the they have been able to acquire during life, shrewdest lawyers. prove beyond all doubt that very few men Sometimes wills are exceedingly short, are really known until they are dead. that of Mrs. Potter, wife of the Rt. Rev. Millionaire Rogers, of Paterson, N. J., Henry Codrnan Potter. Bishop of New who cared less for art than he did for any York, contained only fifty-one words. It is thing on earth, left several millions of dollars said to be the shortest will recorded in the to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New New York Surrogate's office. In Rhode York, though he may have tried to invali Island a shorter will was probated, for it only date the bequest by an absurd repetition of contained the words: "Airs. , I leave a word, leaving a nephew seventy-five thou her all." sand thousand dollars, which was several In one court it was held, after long legal argument, and much litigation, that the times the amount of his wealth. Some of the crudest and quaintest wills sentence, "Mrs. Sophie Loper is my heiress," constituted a legal will. have stood the legal test, while others care This brevity is very different to the pro fully drawn by men whose authority is un questioned, break down, as in the case of the lixity of old-time introductions to wills. will of Samuel J. Tilden, one of the greatest Shakespeare, for example, commences his will as follows: lawyers of the nineteenth century. It has frequently been held that the will "In the name of God, Amen. I, William Shakespefe, of Stratford-upon-Avon, in the must be in writing, and the question once county of Warwick, gent., in perfect health arose in an English court whether an en graving on a sheet of copper could be called and memory (God be praised!), do make and ordain this my last will and testament writing." Some years ago there was pro duced in the English probate court a plank in manner and form following; that is to say: of wood on which were scratched the testa "First, I commend my soul into the hands mentary dispositions of a shipwrecked naval officer. The piece of board, with its crude of .God, my creator, hoping, and assuredly carving, was held to be a will duly executed. believing, through the only merits of Jesus Christ my Saviour, to be made partaker ot In the Surrogate's office, New York hangs a frame containing the fragments of life everlasting; and my body to the earth a will which had been torn to pieces by the whereof it is made." Then follows a large number of bequests. testator on his death-bed during a fit of de While Shakespeare treated the making of lirium. The bits were secured, pieced to his will with becoming solemnity, William gether and were admitted to probate. Hickington, who died in the year 1770, Heinrich Roth, a well-to-do tradesman.
