Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 14.pdf/408

 The Law as Treated in Fiction. Beneficiaries of an earlier will offer resist ance, but despairingly; and here the tale grows too unreal. Good argument might be made against her validity as a will. Par liament has enacted that a will must be in writing. What does "writing" mean? Not every sort of script will do. Finger tracings on a dusty surface could hardly constitute a will. A dying Roman soldier, it is written, might scratch a will in the sand with his sword, but this was because he was a soldier and not because he satisfied the ordinary forms nor because of the general necessities of the situation. 1 Suppose we refer to the authorities to interpret the word " writing." The early English law, before wills, as we know them, existed, required deeds to be in writing.2 For a deed, it was thought, should be durable and reliable for reference. Since many inscriptions might fail utterly to serve these purposes, Coke and Blackstone declare, apparently by way of corol lary to the rule just stated, that the writing must be on paper or parchment else it is no deed.3 Nothing has been found in the books to establish the law in this respect as other wise to-day .4 Since the functions of wills 1 See 1 Phillim. 29 and note b. 1 Co. Lit. 35 b. 3 Co. Lit. 35 b, 229 a; 2 Bl. Com. 297. 4 See Geary v. Physic, 5 B. & C. 234; Clason v. Bailey, 14 Johns. (N. Y.) 484, 491; but see 13 Green Bag, 567, H 4.

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and of deeds are much the same, the rule determining what material should hold the writing should apply indifferently to both. In fact, in the case of Reed against Wood ward, eleven Philadelphia Reports, page 541, it was decided that a will cannot be written on a slate. Now tattooing cannot outlast the life of the tattooed, nor is it readily available for reference, nor capable of being filed. So, at least, the losers might have argued, but instead they gave up the chance of millions without an appeal. The plan of books like these was more perfectly executed by Wilkie Collins in No Name, a well-builded narrative founded on much good law. The author has wound safely through intricacies in the law of marriage, of wills, of descent, and of trusts. He carefully avoids legal dispute by throw ing in enough facts to bring him well within the protection of such rules of law as he can be sure are indisputable. Al together, he sets an instructive example. Novelists, by exercising freely their abso lute control over their facts, should never have any difficulty in choosing safe legal ground. All these things considered, it would seem fair to judge them by the rule that ignorance of the law is no excuse for their misde meanors.