The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1921-05-11
THE CLINCH OF
THE DEAD HAND

Docket
"A little gold that's sure each week
That comes not from my living
kind;
But from a dead man in his grave,
Who cannot change his mind"
The old Egyptians were wise be-
yond their day and generation. His
tory relates that at their feasts il
was their custom to bring in a skele'
ton as a reminder of the shortness
and uncertainty Of life. Did it make
them unhappy? Not at all. On the
contrary, the presence of skeletons
at Egyptian banquets furnished in,
citement to greater merriment. The
bones were pelted and the jewellers
called for more wine.
The "Jolly Te~stator," the man who
wrote his own will, and who was 4
standing toast for the old English
barristers as "the lawyers best
FRIEND" has continued u~ndismayed
by the skeleton milestones in the his
tory of wills from time immemorial.
He has refused; to profit by the expe-
rience of others. In fact, if we ex-
anime the court records and follow
the train of disastrous consequence
of poorly written, homemade" o"
"ready-made" wills, we find that new
terrors have been added to death.
The fatal belief persists, in men
who have otherwise in their business
life shown keen perception and fore
sight, that the writing of a will calls
for less erudition and care than the
preparation of an ordinary business
document. The average lawyer can
not specialize in will writing, for in
general practice he will probably not
be called on to write half a dozen
wills a year.
Few testators have definite ideas
as to the distribution Of their prop
erty. Disposition is often made by the
lawyer who writes the will. 1t is OBJ
vious, therefore, that the adviser
should Nbe a man of sound judgment
in worldly and legal affairs; that he
should have a thorough understand
ing as to the family relations of the
will maker.
Many estates have been wrecked
by a lack of understanding of the
laws of perpetuity and an inordinate
desire for posthumous fame. Not long
ago there died in Missouri one of
it's foremost citizens. He left an es-
tate valued at several million dollars.
His children were .middle-aged, ca
pable, and highly respected. By his
will ne created a trust of his whole
estate, the principal to be divided
between his descendants living at the
end of the trust, which was to termi-
hate twenty-ene years after the death
of the last of his grandchildren who
were living at the time of his death.
Assuming that any of his grandchil-
dren should live as long as the grand
father this trust would run for more
than a hundred years. The wisdom
of such testamentary trusts is con-
t:cve-.ed by experience.
All trusts of a general public,
charitable character are excluded
from the operation of the law of per.
petuities, and are excluded from the
purview of this article. One of the
most frequent and dangerous pro
pensities which the law has to check
ard guard against is testators in the
desire for perpetuating the family
name and the accumulation of large
estates. Hence we have the so-callet
law against perpetuities.
We find that this law, early in it
history, guarded against indefinite
control of property and the perpetu
alton of fortunes. The old commol
law against the creation of a perpet
uity has descended to US, but ha
been modified by the statutes o
many of our states. This rule o
English law, which held that the pc
Rod within which an estate might b
preserved, without vesting absolute
" in some one, could rot exceed
life or lives in being, plus twenty