Kingsbury County independent. (DeSmet, Kingsbury County, S.D.) 1894-1929, 1911-04-07
A TALK OF WILLS.

BY VIRGIL M. HARRIS.


| ever play, an important part in history
n human affairs.
Quite a number of wills in rhyme
have been successfully probated.
Writers of fiction and playwrights are
fond of constructing wills. Dickens
was a great will writer and his por-
trayal of the foibles of elderly people
in making wills. in his American
Notes." is not surpassed in correctness
of description or in accurate knowl-
edge of testamentary affairs. Even
that prince of jokers, Don Quixote,
when death overlook him, exclaimed:
An end to jesting; bring me a confess
sor to confess me and a notary to w-ste
my WILL" Who can forget the will in
Or. Jekyll and Mr.. Hyde" or that of
old Noirtier in the Count of Monte
Cristo," or the child's will in Little
| Women
Mr.. John Marshall Gest, Of Philadel-
phia, a very brilliant legal writer, says:
Every man who knows how to write
thinks he can write a will, and long
may this happy hallucination possess
the minds of our lay brethren; for
surely st. Ives, the patron saint of law
yers. extends to non a heartier well
come in the life beyond than to the tes-
I tator who writes his own will" And he
adds: Few testators know their own
minds, and a deathbed will is as sorry
a substitute as a deathbed repentance
is for a well ordered life"
Lord Coke was an eminent writer on
wills. He says: Wills and the con
| structioH of them dc mere prepley q
man a amy other learning. / find
grave doubts and controversies daily
arise in devises made by last wills in
respect of obscure and inSenSible words
and sentences; the will beng
made in haste and some pretend that
the testator in respect of extreme pain
was not compos mentis and divers 9TH
er scruples and questions are moved
upon wills"
But the truth is that wills are chiefly
broken from without and not from
within. That is to say, wills are set
aside, not so much from faulty con-
| struction as from mental i~ncapdcity
and family differences and preferences,
| resulting in partially in distribution.
Not one will in 500 filed is successfully
contested; poorly constructed wills
may stand, yet cause Inconvenience,
doubts and litigation.
Laymen should never attempt wills;
and it is a fact that not one lawyer in
| 10 can properly construct a will, ex-
cept it be of the simplest nature, I'M
less his experience in this line OF work
| has been extensive n he has seen the
practical everyday results of errors and
faulty composition. Accurate will
| writing is an art which comes from
practice and experience, and requires,
in most instances, a thorough knoWl-
edge of the aW.
One Of the strangest facts in legal
, history is that a great number of emf
nent lawyers have constructed for
themselves defective wills. 1t means
nothing more, however, than that their
abilities did not lie in the direction of
will writing. Lord st. Leonards, whose
own will was the subject of a long and
costly litigation, wrote: Il could with
out difficulty run over the names OF
many judges and lawyers of note,
whose Wills, made by themselves, have
been set aside. or construed so as to
| defeat every intention they ever had"
The vagaries Of the human mind in
will making are marked. The number
Of odd and curious wills Is limitless;
now and then we find In n bitterness
and malevolence, and a parting shot is
taken at some one or at the world it
self: but for the most part much char
ity lis manifested, and usually property
finds it's way to channels which affec-
ton, and justice should dictate. Our
respect for human nature suffers less
from testamentary dispositions than 1t
does from the conduct of those who
ere heneficiaries. The spectacle of
-rangling heirs is not q pleasing one.
In the old days in England lawyers
at their q USED TO nave regular
toasts, Here's to the s~choolmaster,"
| and Here's to the writer of his own
will" Schoolmasters and scriveners
tried their hands at wills in olden
times, and yet do so, but often with
| unfortunate results.
Pope must have had in mind the
preparation Of wills when he wrote his
famous line, "A little learning is a dan
gerous thing" for it has a most fitting
application; yet men, contrary to ad-
vice and the experience of centuries
have ever attempted will writing by
their own hands or more generally
through incompetent agents, and will
| probably continue SO to do; n with
such instruments go doubts, difficult
ties, disappointments, unsafe titles and
the curse Of litigation.
The majority Of testators find diff
Guilty in a satisfactory disposition of
their estates, n may, and often do,
survey conditions las through a glass
darkly." There are griefs which can
not be confided; sorrows which cannot
be shared; domestic skeletons which
must not be exposed; yet this would
be a barren world without genuine
| friendships, and in every life some are
to be found. A testator canno do bet
ter in making his will than to consult
a trusted and level-headed friend as to
the wisdom Of it's provisions. If that
friend is his legal adviser, all the bet
ter; if not, then the legal adviser
should be consulted, and the will ac-