The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-04-11
THE LAW OF WILLS.

Among the enactments OF the last Legis-
lature there is one law at least which the
legal and moral sense of the people of Cali
fornia most heartily approves. 1t is the
law which so amends the Civil Code as to
provide for the formal recordation of mar
rage contracts as prerequisite to their
validity. 1t is high time in the history of
California that such a statute should be
enacted and enforced, and had it been so
twenty years ago, much of the disgraceful
and disgusting litigation of that period
would not have occurred.
The principle which underlies the public
satisfaction with this enactment is, that
instruments which are intended to affect
the domestic relation and the rights of
property arising therefrom should be sus-
ceptible of exact and official proof as to
their validity, and that to permit their exc
cution without formality and their preser-
walton in privacy and secrecy is to allow
mission of which the temptation is pecu-
liarly subtitle and strong.
The same common-sense which has
applauded the statute requiring the record
alton of marriage contracts should have
suggested to the last Legislature another
law touching kindred subject. The law
of wills in this State is in as much or more
need of amendment as was the law of mar
rage contracts. By its present terms an
apparent solemnity is cast about the execu-
ton of will which the testator does not
himself fully write or will or sign. The
required formalities of the present statute
avail but little, however, in view of the
fact that any paper, no matter how in
formal, purporting to be in the handwrit-
ing of the testator is entitled to admission
to probate as the dead mans will. The
result of this loose condition of the law of
wills has been the establishment as genuine
of all sorts of nondescript documents. Wills
scrawled upon walls, upon envelopes, upon
wrapping paper and the like with varying
sorts of perishable pigments have demand
ed recognition from courts of law after the
hand which uncertain oral testimony
asserts to have written them is dead. If
it is sound public policy to require the
official acknowledgements and recordation of
deeds and mortgages and marriage con-
tracts why not also require an equally
formal authorization of wills and that,
too, before the death of the testator?
We may well learn wisdom in this mat
| ter from the laws of older States and social
| systems than our own. In Germany and
| France the laws have long required the
authorization of the will during the life
time of him who is claimed to have written
it. We might easily adopt similar pol
| icy and enforce it without any violation OF
that secrecy which is often desired by the
makers of wills. All that would be neces-
sary by way of amendment of our present
law would be requirement that the tes-
| tator in his lifetime present to some au
| thorized official, such as the County Clerk,
his will for filing. Let it be sealed and its
contents be as sacredly kept as other
sealed records are now preserved. Let a
duplicate original be certified and returned
to the testator, if he so desired, as an added
precaution against the possibility of loss
of the official copy. Let all wills other