Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 15.pdf/476

 Some Singular Wills. who executed them. As an example of the former, we may give the following passage from the settlement of Lady Palmerston, an ancestress of the celebrated Premier. Re ferring to her husband, she says, "As I have long given you my heart and tenderest affec tions and fondest wishes have always been yours, so is everything else that I possess; and all that I can call mine being already yours, I have nothing to give but my hearti est thanks for the care and kindness you have at any time shown me, either in sickness or in health, for which God Almighty will, I hope, reward you in a better world." Then, for "form's sake," folovv several specific be quests. A specimen of the opposite sort was the will of Mr. Rogers of Dublin. In April, 1888, Mrs. Rogers disputed her husband's will in the Dublin Probate Court, on the ground of his deficiency of testamentary capacity. The will contained the clause: "In consequence of the ill-behavior and bad conduct of my wife, I cut her off with one shilling, and she is not to have either hand, act or part in the management, supporting or educating of my children." The evidence showed that the de ceased was jealous of his spouse, who at the time of the marriage was eighteen years of age, while he was eighty. The jury found a verdict establishing the will. Henry, Earl of Stafford, again, inserted the following in his testamentary disposi tion: "I give to the worst of women, who is guilty of all ills—the daughter of Mr. Grammqnt, a Frenchman—whom I have unfortu nately married, five and forty brass half pence, which will buy her a pullet for her supper—a greater sum than her father can often make over to her—for I have known when he had neither money nor credit, for such a purchase, he being the worst of men, and his wife the worst of women in all de baucheries. Had I known their characters I would never have married their daughter, nor made myself unhappy."

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Another gentleman bequeathed to the partner of his joys and sorrows his "bitter contempt for her infamous conduct," and a Colonel Nash made the subjoined pro visions. He bequeathed an annuity of fifty pounds to the bell ringers of Bath Abbey, England, on the condition that they should muffle the clappers of the bells of the said Abbey, and ring them with doleful accentu ation from 8 a. m. to 8 p. m. on each anni versary of his wedding day; and, during the same number of hours only, with a merry peal on the anniversary of the day which released him from domestic tyranny and wretchedness. A Mr. Luke of Rotheringham, who died in 1812, also left bell ringers legacies, though under different circum stances. His will is a most extraordinary document. He left a penny to every child who should attend his obsequies, with the result that over seven hundred youngsters were in attendance at the funeral. All the poor women in the parish were bequeathed one shilling each. The bell ringers were left half a guinea each, to "strike off one peai of grand bobs" at the exact moment the bodywas earthed; and seven of the oldest navvies were to have a guinea for "puddling him up" in his grave. An old woman "who had for sixteen years tucked him up in his bed," was to have one guinea. A singular endowment was made, whereby forty dozen penny loaves were to be thrown down from the parish church steeple, at noon, every Christmas Day forever. A German bequeathed his effects to a poor man whom he intensely disliked, on con dition that he always wore linen under clothes, without any additional under clothing; while John Reed, the gaslighter of the Walnut Street Theatre, Philadelphia, concluded his will thus: "My head to be separated from my body, duly macerated and prepared, then to be employed to represent the skull of Yorick in the play of 'Hamlet.'" Stanislaus Poltmarz left the greater part