Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1906-04-15
WHIMS AND FANCIES

pher still presided over his friends hanquets-gazing from a glass case, to be sure, but described as having all the appearance, thanks to the skill of the embalming process, of an excellent statue. But as time went on the banquets became fewer, and the old gentleman now sits in the r,useum of an English college.
 In actual donations of money that one or more trustees must admins ter, the human nature of a will lies more frequently in it's smaller than in it's larger donations. A man in England, for instance, some time ago bequeathed the sum of twenty shill- ings a year, payable at five shillinss
 quarterly. to poor man ito go about the parish church, during the sermon, to keep people awake. and to keep dogs out of the church. One can almost see him in imagina- tion sitting in his pew and chuckling in advance over that provision. And there was a man in Ohio not long ago who founded by will an infirmary for homeless cats, and took good care to specify that proper sporting grounds well stocked with rats. should be provided for the inmates.
 Far removed from his kindly feel ing was the Bostonian-although tfere may have been something to wife penniless unless sfe married again within five years, giving as reason that he wanted somebody else to find out how hard it was to live with her. In this country such post mortem spite, however. easily defeat cd it's own ends, and no American jury would expect either a good na- tured trustee or an impersonal trust company, acting in the same eapae ity, to enforce the conditions.
 Pleasanter to think of although sometimes equally absurd in detail, are the wills now and then made by testators who aim to promote virtue and discourage vice among their i'm mediate descedants. There is a Long Island will in which a man of con siderable wealth provided that none of his heirs should inherit unless they could give proof that they were leading lives of almost angelic vir tue. They should neither smoke nor drink: they must be up early every morning and breakfast at certain hour. they must be i'll the house carly each evening; they must be in- dpstrious; they should never enter Yarroom and should not marry until tie age of twenty y-five. Out of all the heirs there was only one who was willing to come within the limits of the specifications Quite the opposite C this Long Islander was the queer old Finlander who cheerfnlly devis cd all his property to the devil-and the state at once took possession Of it Perhaps hardly less cynical was thn man in one of our western towns who devisnd all his property to any nn8n who could prove himself Chris tian. defining the word Christian in a WAY that no mortal man could possibly como up to. And here the court set aside the will and saved the executors untold perplexity by giving the property to leaa heir.
 Dividing property by means of a will is a custom of ancient origin, perhaps the earliest mention of a will being the statement in Genesis that Jacob gave Joseph q portion above his brethren. In Greece wills are said to haye been made as ean7y as 59l B. C .althoush loais'a1ion covering questions of leeaefss nrob ably came into bei@a several centll. }ies later From those early days until the mid =sla of the nine eanth eaa}- tury indiviauats acted as tl.estees un- der wills Finally lawyers began warnna the:l clients aaainst the dan- @ers of t4alsteeships and the rascality sf ts3serstanluos trustees has form ed tho basis af an infinite variety of l lays ana nCyels. Half a century ago the first t!3st company that includ- cd trustees" among it's rontine du tios was formed ia En@land, So euc- eessfHl havo heen the trust compa- nies that theHn are now moro than f00 of tnem in the United States, with reso'Yces of more than $2,500., 6A0.6h0 and aggregate deposits amounting 10 nearly s2,000, ,0oo0 00o, or near'v ono-ffth of the total de rnsite af all tho banking institutions in the country.