Smyrna times., 1917-09-12
Will MAKING A BET
nEsTAMENTS OF NOTED LAW,
YERS OFTEN SET ASIDE.
Questioning the Sanity Of the De-
ceased the Usual Method of EVad-
ing His Wishes as to DISPOSE
ton of His Property.

viii making is the great post NOR
TEN lottery of civilized man. His will |
is, as it were, a lottery ticket which
he buys to give away, and whether
those to whom he gives the tickets
draw prizes or blanks is one lottery
the more.
When a will does not suit the rela-
tiveS of the deceased (and that is an
occurrence by no means rare) it is Gus
tOmary to contend that the will maxi
er was not in his right mind. In Or
der to ''crack" will, says Uncle Dud-
ley in the Boston Globe, we contend
that the will maker was cracked"
and as many wills are made in that
period technically known as second
childhood" it is usually not difficult
to show that the testator was at least
eccentric. The result is that doctors,
neighbors, trained nurses and rela-
tives appraise an attentive court and
a no less expectant public of all the
personal peculiarities of poor, dear
Uncle William" with a view to eStab-
fishing that he was not in his right
mind nor anywhere near it.
Will making is the stock in trade of
literature and drama. The lOng-lOst
will turning up on the tick of II is the
recognized method of getting the dis
tressed heroine out of her predicament
and bringing down vengeance on the
wicked.
A good half of our plays and novels
could hardly have been plotted without
the whims and stratagems of cantaker-
GUS and curmudgeonly will makers.
George Eliot, in her novel of mid
dlemarch,' has a scene of Shakespear-
can humor in which a miser's will is
read after his funeral and nobody gets
what he expected. Samuel Butler in
his novel 1.-THE Way of All Flesh" has
some amusing remarks on the parental
folly of twill dangling and will shak-
ing to intimidate ones children, and
concludes that these powers are so IL
able to abuse that he would pass q
law, if he could, to incapacitate any
man from making a will for three
months from the date of each Offense
of that kind and let the judge dispose
of his property as seemed best if he
died during the time when his will
making power was suspended.
Two founders of the American Re
public were wise in their generation
on the subject of will making-Benja
min Franklin and Thomas Jefferson
Franklin left $1,000 to his native towr
of Boston and a similar amount tt
Philadelphia to aid young married
artificers' in starting business, an(
which at the end of a century was tt
be divided, part going for public worl
and part to be continued at interes
for another century. The result il
our industrial school, the Franklin
union. Philadelphia's fund has no
Jared as well as ours.
Jefferson perceived that the Englisl
custom of transmitting estates so a
to keep them undivided and in a singl
family by laws of primogeniture an
entail was one of the effective method
Of creating a landed aristOcracy or ru
ing class. Believing not in aristOcre
cies, but in democracy, he took goo
care to head off that tendency, wit
the result that our country is reason
ably quit of at least that incubus. Al
tuaries figure that 20 years is aboU
the average span within which grea
family estate may be held in trust an
intact under our laws.
The law itself draws fairly equiti
BILE will for a man who dies withOJ
making one. In Massachusetts, fl
example, it gives, generally speaking
two-thirds to the children and on
third to the widow. 1t cannot, I
course, take account of public b
quests, but it represents the suppose
wishes of a normal citizen with r
spect to his heirs and property.
The irony of death itself haunts IL
will. Great lawyers, like Samuel
Tilden, who have made wills by Il
score, have their own wills set asid
The will dramatizes the shortness
human foresight. If the testatOr vi
wealthy, people ask, "How much d
he leave?" and answer mOckingly, "a
he had"