Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 September 1875 — Queer Wills. [ARTICLE]

Queer Wills.

There is nothing more singular in the history of testamentary dispositions than the fashion in which the owners of property have seized the occasion to “have it put” with their relatives. There is a fiendish ingenuity of cruelty in the conduct of a man who leaves a certain legacy in his will to fire the imagination of such and such a relative and then revokes the bequest by a codicil, giving the reasons for his so doing. Attached to other bequests well known in the lore of anecdote phrases have been used which must have considerably lessened the satisfaction of the legatee. An Englishman once left the sum of five shillings to “Mary Davis, daughter of Peter Delaport, which is sufficient to enable her to get drunk for the last time at my expense.” A member of a great industrial family, which has been renowned for generations for its eccentricities, remarked in his will: “To my only son, who never would follow my advice and has treated me rudely in very many instances: instead of making him my executor and residuary legatee (as till this day he was), I give him £100,000;” but then no ordinary person would stop to consider the terms of a bequest which handed him over £IOO,OOO. It is on record that another gentleman once directed his executors to purchase a copy of the picture representing a viper biting the hand of the man who had saved it, and to give that to a certain friend of his, in lieu of a legacy of £3,000 which he had left him by a former will, now revoked and burned. “ I give and devise to my son, Daniel hurch,” said a certain Mr. 8. Church, in his will, “ only one shilling, and that is for him to hire a porter to cany away the next badge and frame he steals.” Dying people have often had thus a grin at their friends’ expense. A certain Judge once decreed by his will that his wife should cut off one of his toes or fingers to make sure he was dead, adding that he made the request so that, “as she had been troubled with one old fool, she will not think of marrying a second ;” though why her cutting off a toe from her deceased lord should have prevented her choosing a successor to him does not clearly appear. A Mr. Swain, we are told, gave “ to John Abbot and Mary, his wife, 6d. each, to buy for each of them a halter, for fear the Sheriffs should not be provided.” A Mr. Darley left to his wife a shilling, “ for picking my pocket of sixty guineas.” A bookseller is said to have left the handsome legacy of £SO to “ Elizabeth Parker, whom, through my foolish fondness, I made my wife, without regard to family, fame, or fortune; and who, in return, has not spared most unjustly to accuse me of every crime regarding human nature save highway robbery.” Not the least curious feature, too, in wills and bequests is the extraordinary importance which women more especially put upon articles of household furniture and decoration that have become endeared to them through constant care and pride. Many a friend has thought that a joke must have been in the mind of this or that old lady who, with great “circumstantiality, directed in her will that he should have a particular set of sugar-tongs and his wife a knitted firescreen ; whejeas, the old lady considered that these articles were oi the utmost yalue and importance. Now is thr Tim». —lt Is always the right time to do a good act, and every man with a family should regard himself short of his duty until his home is endowed with a Wilson shuttle sewing machine. Let it it be understood that this admirable * machine captured the prize medal and diploma of honor at the, Vienna Exposition in 1878, and has everywhere demonstrated its superiority over all other machines. Machines will be delivered at any railroad station in this county, free of transportation charges, if ordered through the company’s branch houje at 197 State street, Chicago. They send an elegant catalogue and chromo circular free on application. This company want a few more good agents. •. * -.