Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 6.djvu/276

 264 PBDEBAL BEPORTEK. �the settled rule in the construction of powers, does not liesi- tate to characterize it "as a very strict and harsh" one. 4 Kent, 345. �The principal authority cited by the defendants upon thia point is Adams v. Law, 17 How. 417. In this case the ques- tion arose upon the construction of marriage articles to secure a jointure to the intended wife. The articles provided that in case of the death of the husband before the wife, she should have the use of certain real property during her life; but in case of her death before his, "leaving isswe of the said marriage one or more children then living," upon the death of the husband the property was to go "to the child or children of said marriage" in fee-simple. The daughter and only child of this marriage intermarried with Lloyd N. Eogers, and died before her mother, leaving two children, who, upon the death of their grandparents, — the grandmother dying first,^claimed to be entitled to take under the articles as the representatives of their deceased mother. �The court below allowed the claim, but the supreme court held otherwise, saying: "The word ' issue 'is a general term, wbich, if not qualified or explained, may be construed to include grandchildren as well as children. But the legal con- struction of the word 'children' accords with the popular signification, namely, as designating the immediate off- spring;" but admitted that in the case of wills, where such appeared to have been the intention of the testator, grand- children had been allowed to take under a devise "to mysur- viving children." �But the court was evidently influenced by the considera- tion that the principal object of the articles was to make a provision for the intended wife, and not the issue of the mar- riage, and also that the children to whom the estate was limited, upon the double contingency of the wife dying before the husband and their surviving them both, were "children then living;" that is, at the death of the mother and the father. �But in Walton v. Cotton, 19 How. 355, the court held that the word "children," in the act of congress of June 2, 1832, ��� �