Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-01-26
HOW TO MAKE WILLS.
Bessie Bramble RejOices in the Re
cent Court Decision.
REFORM OF BARBAROUS LAWS,
Struggles for the Rights Of Married Women
as to Property.
DIVISION OF THE W. c. T. U. WORKERS
WRITTEN FOR THE D1spATcH.l

WRITTEN FOR THE DIsPATcH.I
The recent decision of the Supreme Court
on the disputed will of Mrs. Harriet Knox,
of this city, shows a state of affairs in law
which indicates that quiet, yet sure, revo-
luton is going on-or perhaps we should
call it result of evolution-a process of
growth or development from the barbarisms
of the past. Making will has been here
tofore considered, by most people, as most
serious and momentous affair." Most men
shrink from it, neglect 1t, and put it off
until the time comes when the approach of
death urges them to its performance. Many
others regard making Will with supersti-
tious fear, as though writing what they de-
sire to have done with their property when
they themselves no longer need it, or can
control it, is to invite the presence of the
Grim Reaper, whose name is Death, with
his inevitable and dreaded sickle Others
drive away all thoughts of the future-will
not think of what may happen when they
have left their old familiar haunts and
cherished friends-and dismiss the thought
with the remark that the State makes good
enough will for them.
Most of the dislike, neglect and deferring
~
from feeling against going through the
forms and legalities supposed to be essential
the ridiculous phraseology and absurd
verbiage as to "whereases," and "afore-
saids," and "herebys," long and intricate
sentences impossible for the ordinary mind
to follow, and lot of Latin words and sem
tences that the common man knows nothing
about The willmaker, in such muddle of
| law, imagines that the expert, deemed neces-
sary on the occasion, will make it in accord
ance with his wishes, but the facts are quite
often the other way. Even those profoundly
learned in the law-men who have achieved
great reputation in Its practice-have not
been able TO write their own wills In such
consonance with the laws that their testa-
ments cannot be broken, as witness the late
Samuel Tilden.
IT MEANS A GREAT REFORM
But the late utterance OF the Supreme
Court OF Pennsylvania has made it clear
that reform has been instituted-an ad-
vance in public opinion has been made
that the removal OF a mass of ancient rub
bish has begun and that the judges of to-day
are guided by the light and knowledge of
the present, rather than by the prejudices
and limited intelligence of the past This
decision seems to affirm that people with
property to devise need not necessarily sum-
mon a lawyer nor call upon witnesses, nor %
through all the legal forms and confusinY y.
verbiage hitherto by many deemed essential,
but they can, in the quiet of their rooms
and the clearness of their own reason and
wishes, make will in their own language
that will stand as we'll in court as il it oc-
cupied whole pages of legal paper and had
been drawn up by the best and most expen-
sive of lawyers.
The will of Mrs. Knox, signed Harriet"
and signifying what she wished to be done
with her real and personal property has
been decided by supreme authority to be as
valid and lawful as though it had been
written by the most learned lawyer, with
two good witnesses to the signature, and full
Of formulas and legal terms and intricscies
in which the profession seem to take such
delight. This decision, it is said, has wor-
ried some of the lawyers a good deal, but
there seems to be no evil result in sight to
be apprehended.
REFORMS COME SLOWLY.
Although abuses of the law are so manv,
and are admitted by the most eminent mem
berS of the profession, and lawyers disagree
with as much acrimony, and perhaps as liz
tie knowledge and common sense as do the
doctors on the cure Of disease, it is surpris-
ing what they know to be unjust and
iniquitous. Law and equity are two
things" says Cotton, (Which God hath
Joined, but which man hath put asunder."
Judging by the length of time it takes a re-
form to materialize as a law, it would seem
as if the legislators and Lawyers had no
time to think of equity. 1t is related BY
Lord Campbell that the English Law debar-
ring prisoners in capital cases from the
privilege of counselors for deiense-while
in the smallest of money cases they were
permitted-took nearly two centuries to re-
form, and he was ashamed to say that the |
last opponents to its repeal were almost all OF
the Judges, who predicted all manner of !
evils from this daring innovation. IT is a |
still more remarkable fact, as related bY |
Herbert Spencer, that the most brutal and |
unjust legislation as to marriage and wives, |
which disgraced the statute books of English |
law for 10 or IL centuries, was not reformed |
until within the last 20 years-and, it may |
be said, there is plenty more lett to reform in |
England yet, to make things fair and !
square.
RIGHTS OF A MARRIED WOMAN.
But with all of England's boasted law |
yers, profound judges, grand chancellors-
sitting in all their dignities of woolsacks !
wigs, and gowns-with all her wealth of |
learned men and philosophers, and throngs
Of famous clergymen and sanity bishops |
and eminent poets, writing, thinking,
preaching, poring for centuries over the
rights of humanity, the promotion OF Justice.
the common good-it yet remained for the
State of New York to pass the first law that
permitted married woman to hold prop
erty in her own right, and be invested with
the power to make a will. In late history
the story of this piece of Legislation and the
tremendous evils predicted of it by many
opponents is told. 1t seems that
in that State there were many among the old
Dutch aristocracy who had a vast amount
of wealth to devise in the shape of lands
and personal property, and as dissipation
was then more common than at present, and
married women were not allowed to hold
either property or children under the law,
thev were constantly facing the fact that
the fortunes they had so carefully accumu-
lated might. through daughters marriage,
fall into the possession and under the con-
troll of dissipated husbands and be subjected
to the risk OF being wasted in riotous living,
with the evils of poverty in reserve for those
loved ones who were best entitled to its use,
Some fagrant cases of Just such doing ex-
cited much thought and talk, and the care
full old fathers, with wise selfshness, turned
in with the reformers, and pushed the bill of
'48 to a successful conclusion.
AJUDGE FATHERED THE BILL.
To the credit of the profession OF the law,
] Jndge Fine, member of the bar, who had
occupied the bench, and had a daughter to
protect, was not as obivious to Justice as the
army of English bigwigs. He was the
father of the bill, and was determined to
push his radical and extreme measure. even
if it shook up the old system from the
foundation stones. Odd to relate, the strong
est opponent was lawyer of matured years
and wide learning, but he had never had a
wife. The bill went through, and ever since
the old Blackstone code, as regards women,
has been gradually undermined.
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