Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 August 1876 — The Penalty of Riches. [ARTICLE]

The Penalty of Riches.

One' of the prominent legal ldtnhiarie* of this city has far a client a wealthy old lady, now verging on to four score yearn in age. She is reported to possess about* milium, well invested in real estate aad dividend-paying bonds. She faa* bat few relatives, and these few pester her beyond all reason. Two of them an her own children, aliteady rich from the proceeds of their father’s -bounty when he died twenty years ago. There are four grandchildren, and a half-dozen nieces and nephews. Between all these a constant struggle has been going on, . for several years, to secure the favor of the old lady, and obtain.remembrance in her will. The consequence is that they keep her in constant hot water, and several times she has petulantly Informed those nearest to her that she will disinherit the entire lot. The lawyer before mentioned has drawn for the old lady no less than thirteen wills in ten years. In the beginning she devised certain bequests, and then changed them by codicils. The additions, however, became so conflicting that she was advised to make a new will. Since then every new whim or desire as to the disposition of her property demands a new wilj, and she refuses to believe in codicils at all. Once, five years ago, she arranged the deeds of certain property and the stocks and bonds in separate envelopes, and marked them on the outside, with her own hands, for those whom she designed to benefit. Repeatedly she has been advised to divide her property while she lives, but she steadily refuses, and says: “ No, If I do, I shall regret it and be unhappy.” He* latest will is now .in the Safe Deposit Company’s vaults, and devises tbe bulk of her property to certain benevolent institutions. Our legal friend predicts, however, that, he will be sent for. within three months to. draw another will, unless in the interim the aged will-maker should happen to die.. Thus the riches of. the. world trouble their' possessors, and the old lady is worrying herself to the grave disposing of her property.—ls. Y. Cor. Chicago Tribune.