The Project Gutenberg eBook of Ancient, Curious and Famous Wills, by Virgil M. Harris.

A certain lady, dying in New York, was entitled to the use for several years to come of a pew in Grace Church, New York; she bequeathed its use to a female relative living in Johnstown, Pennsylvania; the donee, being unable to use the pew, transferred the right to one who could use it, and received in return a sealskin sack which is reported to have been of great length and beauty, thus showing like John Gilpin’s wife that, though on comfort bent, “she had a frugal mind.”

Not known until recently to be in existence, because it was written faintly in pencil in an old pocket memorandum book, the will of Dr. John D. Potter, of Pittsburgh, who died July 22, 1906, was recently filed for probate by his brother, Robert J. Potter.

The will disposes of $5000 personal property and real estate of unestimated value situated in Pittsburgh and East Deer township.

“John D. Potter will, dated January 22, 1903. I bequeath to my mother all my property, both real and personal. I hereby appoint my brother, R. J. Potter, executor of my estate without bond. John D. Potter, M.D.”

There has just been filed at Pottsville, Pennsylvania, the oddest instrument ever recorded in that city: the document conveys land for the erection of a new church, but stipulates that when the church is erected, a certain pastor shall be forever debarred from holding an office or preaching a sermon in the building, and that a specified elder shall also be precluded from holding an office.

Few realize the value of accuracy in testamentary and other writings. The other day there appeared a decision by the Supreme Court of Missouri, upsetting a sale, where the judges gravely decided that “Mike” did not mean “Michael”; and one of the arguments in reaching this result was, that to have called Michael Angelo, “Mike” Angelo, would have been a sacrilege to the memory of the great painter.

If the late prevailing high prices for meat continue, Puck of New York suggests the following will:

“In the name of God, Amen! I, John Doe, in the City of Jersey, County of Hudson, State of New Jersey, being of sound mind and memory, do hereby make, publish, and declare this my Last Will and Testament in manner following, that is to say:

“First, I bequeath to my eldest son, John, two juicy porterhouse steaks now in the custody of the Arctic Storage Company;

“Second, I leave to my son, Wilfred, a leg of spring lamb now stored with the Freezem Warehouse;

“Third, I leave to my daughter six pounds of veal chops locked in the refrigerator in the cellar beneath my residence, the combination for the lock of which is held by the Columbia Trust Company. It is also my desire that the executors have these chops frenched before turning same over to the legatee;

“Fourth, I leave to my mother-in-law one haslet, which will be delivered to her upon application at either the Morris or Swift beef houses.

“Lastly, I hereby nominate Richard Roe, the wholesale butcher, Morris Moe, the beef-trust magnate, and Paul Poe, meat manipulator, to be executors of this my last will and testament, hereby revoking all former wills by me made.

“In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and seal, the eighth day of May in the year of our Lord, Nineteen Hundred and Ten.

The farmer marched into the little grocer’s shop with a firm step. “I want that tub of butter,” he said, “and that lot of sugar, and all that other stuff.”

“Good gracious!” said the widow who kept the shop. “Whatever do you want with all them goods?”

“I dunno,” said the farmer, scratching his head; “but, you see, I’m the executor of your husband’s will, and the lawyers told me I was to carry out the provisions.”

“Buoy’d above the Terror of Death by the Consciousness of a Life devoted to honorable pursuits and stained with no Action that can give me Remorse, I trust the request I make to your Excellency at this serious period and which is to soften my last moments will not be rejected.

“Sympathy towards a Soldier will surely induce Your Excellency and a military Tribunal to adapt the mode of my death to the feelings of a Man of honour.

“Let me hope Sir, that if aught in my character impresses you with Esteem towards me, if aught in my misfortunes marks me as the victim of policy and not of resentment, I shall experience the operation of these Feelings in your Breast by being informed that I am not to die on a Gibbet.

“Your Excellency’s
“Most obedient and
“most humble Servant
“John André
“Ad. Gen. to the Brit: :Army.

The last words of great men seem always to possess a peculiar value in the minds of the people; the following is a touching example:

In the afternoon of his last day on earth the President began to realize that his life was slipping away, and that the efforts of science could not save him. He asked Dr. Rixey to bring the surgeons in. One by one the surgeons entered and approached the bedside. When they gathered about him, the President opened his eyes and said:

The dying man crossed his hands on his breast and half closed his eyes. There was a beautiful smile on his countenance. The surgeons bowed their heads. Tears streamed from the eyes of the white-clad nurses on either side of the bed. The yellow radiance of the sun shone softly in the room.

“Our Father which art in Heaven,” said the President in a clear, steady voice.

The sobbing of a nurse disturbed the still air. The President opened his eyes and closed them again.

A long sigh. The sands of life were running swiftly. The sunlight died out; the raindrops dashed against the windows.

“Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors: and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”

It was disclosed to the observant eye of Washington Irving that when the noble elk finds himself mortally wounded, he leaves his companions, and turning aside, seeks some out-of-the-way place to die; and his incomparable pen depicts such a scene in his “Tour of the Prairies,” a book which is ever a delight to lovers of nature and outdoor life; and so when death was about to overtake him did Tolstoi, one of the Masters of the Old World, attempt to withdraw from mankind and quietly disappear, dying at a little railway station in Russia.

His valuable manuscripts passed by his last will to his daughter: by another testament, written at the Optina Monastery on November 11, 1910, a few days before his death, he left an address entitled “Effective Means.” It says:

“I am naturally anxious to do all I can against evil, which tortures the best spirits of our time.

“I think the present effective war against capital punishment does not need forcing; there is no need for an expression of indignation against its immorality, cruelty and absurdity; every sincere, thinking person, everybody knowing from youth the sixth commandment, needs no explanation of its absurdity and immorality; there is no need for descriptions of the horrors of executions, as they only affect hangmen, so men will more unwillingly become executioners and governments will be obliged to compensate them more dearly for their services.

“Therefore, I think that neither the expression of indignation against the murder of our fellow-men, nor the suggestion of its horrors, is mainly needed; but something totally different.

“As Kant well says, there are delusions which cannot be disproved, and we must communicate to the deluded mind knowledge which will enlighten, and then the delusions will vanish by themselves.

“What knowledge need we communicate to the deluded human mind regarding the indispensableness, usefulness or justice of capital punishment in order that said delusion may destroy itself.

“Such knowledge in my opinion is this: The knowledge of what is man, what his surrounding world, what his destiny; hence, what man can and must do, and principally what he cannot and must not do.

“Therefore, we should oppose capital punishment by inculcating this knowledge to all men, especially to hangmen’s managers and sympathizers who wrongfully think they are maintaining their position, thanks only to capital punishment.

“I know this is not an easy task. The employers and approvers of hangmen, with the instinct of self-preservation, feel that this knowledge will make impossible the maintenance of the position which they occupy; hence not only will they themselves not adopt it, but by all means in their power, by violence, deceit, lies and cruelty, they will try to hide from the people this knowledge, distorting it and exposing its disseminators to all kinds of privations and suffering.

“Therefore, if we readily wish to destroy the delusion of capital punishment, and if we possess the knowledge which destroys this delusion, let us, in spite of all menaces, deprivations and sufferings, teach the people this knowledge, because it is solely the effective means in the fight.

If not a will, the last writing of William Logan Crittenden carried with it a wealth of sentiment and affection; he was a member of the celebrated Kentucky family, and a graduate of West Point. In the year 1851, he joined General Narcisso Lopez, who sought volunteers in the United States to aid in the struggle then going on for Cuban independence. The expedition had intended to land at some remote part of the island of Cuba, but a heavy gale drove the vessel to a small port barely twenty miles from the city of Havana. Crittenden and his party were captured: cruelly bound, he was taken to Havana and imprisoned in the grim Atares Castle; on the following day, he and his companions were shot. Shortly before his death, he was permitted to pen the following pathetic lines to a friend: “This is an incoherent letter, but the circumstances must excuse it. My hands are swollen to double their natural thickness, resulting from having been too tightly corded during the last eighteen hours. Write John (his brother), and let him write to my mother. I am afraid that the news will break her heart. My heart beats warmly for her now. Farewell. My love to all my friends.” When one of the Kentucky regiments was in action during the Spanish-American War, their battle-cry was, “Remember Crittenden.” At Santiago, Cuba, there is placed a commemorative tablet, which serves to recall another ill-fated attempt to aid in a Cuban insurrection, that of 1873. The Virginius, a steamer carrying the American flag, was captured by a Spanish man-of-war, the officers, crew and passengers were shot: the tablet reads: “Thou who passest this place, uncover thyself. This spot is consecrated earth. For thirty years it has been blessed with the blood of patriots immolated by tyranny.”

History does not record that the great Chinese philosopher and sage made a testamentary disposition of his worldly effects; but we find that just before his death in 478 B.C., with his hands behind his back, dragging his staff, he moved about his door reciting:

The grave of Confucius is in Kung Cemetery near the city of Kiuh-Fow: a magnificent gate opens into a beautiful avenue which leads to his tomb, this avenue being shaded by cypresses and other fine old trees: the inscription on his tomb reads:

Confucius enunciated the Golden Rule five hundred years before Christ, and although negatively put, it is to all intents and purposes the same as given by the Master:

The will of Elijah Bell was probated at Columbus, Ohio, on October 5, 1910. It disposes of an estate of twenty thousand dollars between his widow, children and grandchildren. In a codicil, he states that no changes have been made in his will, and that if any were found on opening that document, the court was to declare the instrument a forgery.

He also declared that he had paid the undertaker for his burial, the sum of one hundred and ninety-eight dollars; the items being, a casket one hundred and forty dollars, a vault fifty dollars, and a shroud eight dollars.

William Faxon died recently at Ovid, Michigan. When the mourners had gathered at the Faxon home, in which lay his open coffin, they were surprised to hear his voice in an anthem from behind a screen of flowers and palms.

Sometime before his death, Faxon conceived the idea of preserving his own voice by means of the phonograph, to be a part of the service when he died. He was a well-known choir singer, and possessed a rich tenor voice.

An inventory recently filed in the County Court at Nashville, Tennessee, is probably the most unusual instrument of its kind ever admitted to probate. The document is signed by Mrs. Corra W. Harris, the author of a book of high merit, “A Circuit Rider’s Wife”; her husband, the Reverend Lundy H. Harris, is reported to have died by his own hand; he is said to have been the real circuit rider of the story; his wife qualified as his administratrix. The inventory given below is embodied in a letter addressed to the Clerk of the County Court, which had jurisdiction of the estate of the deceased minister; it is a pathetic and touching tribute from an able pen.

“I have your card saying that if I do not furnish you an Inventory of the estate of Lundy H. Harris, of which I was appointed administratrix, within ten days from receipt of this notice, you will proceed as the law directs.

“I did not know it was my duty to furnish such an inventory and now you demand it I do not know how to do it. If the one I send you is not in proper form to be recorded upon your books, I enclose postage and request you to let me know wherein I have failed.

“It is not with the intention of showing an egregious sentimentality that I say I find it impossible to give you a complete and satisfactory inventory of the estate of Lundy H. Harris. The part that I give is so small that it is insignificant and misleading.

“At the time of his death he had $2.35 in his purse, $116.00 in the Union Bank & Trust Company of this city, about four hundred books, and the coffin in which he was buried, which cost $85.00.

“The major part of his estate was invested in heavenly securities, the values of which have been variously declared in this world, and highly taxed by the various churches, but never realized. He invested every year not less (usually more) than $1200. in charity, so secretly, so inoffensively and so honestly that he was never suspected of being a philanthropist, and never praised for his generosity. He pensioned an old outcast woman in Barton County, an old soldier in Nashville; he sent two little negro boys to school and supported for three years a family of five who could not support themselves. He contributed anonymously to every charity in Nashville, every old maid interested in a ‘benevolent’ object received his aid, every child he knew exacted and received penny tolls from his tenderness. He supported the heart of every man who confided in him with encouragement and affection. He literally did forgive his enemies and suffered martyrdom on Sept. 18th, 1910, after enduring three years of persecution without complaint. He considered himself one of the Chief of Survivors and was ever recognized as one of the largest bondholders in Heaven.

“You can see how large this estate was and how difficult it would be to compute its value so as to furnish you the inventory you require for record on your books. I have given you faithfully such items as have come within my knowledge.

On April 15, 1910, there was an announcement in the newspapers of how a wealthy and well-known lady in St. Louis died, leaving her entire fortune to her husband; the remainder to their children; but in the event he remarries, the estate to pass immediately to their children. This is the second instance we have known of such a provision in a will. A learned legal writer of San Francisco states in his work on wills that he had never met with such an instance.

The will of William, Earl of Pembroke, written July 27, 1469, among other clauses, says: “ ... And wyfe ye remember your promise to me to take the ordre of wydowhood as ye may be the better mastre of your owne to performe my wylle....” And in a codicil he adds: “ ... I will that Maud my daughter be wedded to the Lord Henry of Richmond; Ann to Lord Powys; and Jane to Edmund Malafaul.”

In the year 1784 there was probated in England, the last will and testament of one, M. Fortune Ricard, a teacher of arithmetic. It seems that in his eighth year, his grandparent had given him a small sum of money, and directed him to add the interest to the principal each year, and at his death to employ the result in good works for the repose of their souls. The testator was in his seventy-first year at the time of his death. He divided the fund into five parts. At the end of one hundred years, one part was to be given for the best theological dissertation proving the lawfulness of putting money out at interest. At the end of two hundred years, the second part was to be expended for prizes for distinguished, virtuous actions, literature and other purposes. At the end of three hundred years, the third part was to be used in establishing five hundred patriotic banks in France, lending money without interest. At the end of four hundred years, the fourth part was to be expended in the building of a hundred towns to accommodate the people of France. At the end of five hundred years, the fifth part was to be used in paying off the national debts of England and France.

The will concludes with a hope for the success of these enterprises, above all, that his example would enkindle the emulation of patriots, princes and public bodies, and cause them to give attention to this new and most powerful and invaluable means of serving posterity.

Alfred Bernard Nobel, a Swedish inventor and philanthropist, was born at Stockholm in 1833, and died in 1896. He was a student of the distinguished John Ericsson: he was educated in St. Petersburg, and studied mechanical engineering in the United States: he was granted patents by the United States on nitroglycerin and dynamite: his patents were very numerous, there being filed in Great Britain one hundred and twenty-nine. In 1875, he controlled fifteen dynamite factories in different parts of the world. He is best known by his will in which he founded the Nobel Prize Fund of $9,200,000, reduced by taxation to $8,400,000, the interest on which is annually divided into five equal parts, and awarded as prizes to the person who shall have made, (1) the most important invention or discovery in the domain of physics, (2) in chemistry, (3) in physiology or medicine, (4) who shall have produced in the field of literature the most distinguished work of an idealistic tendency, and, (5) who shall have most or best promoted the interest of universal peace.

The first four prizes are awarded by the academies of Sweden, and the fifth by the Norwegian Storthing (Parliament). The value of each prize is about $38,000; the right to make nominations is bestowed upon members of corresponding academies of other countries, professors holding proper chairs in Scandinavian and foreign universities, recipients of Nobel prizes, and other persons of distinction. The plan of award is that the prizes shall go to those persons who shall have contributed most materially to benefit mankind during the year immediately preceding. The stipulation that the award should be for achievements of the preceding year has been, to a large extent, disregarded, and in many instances the award is the result of the life work of the recipient.

Mr. Russell, in his work, “Seeing and Hearing,” says: “Wills which, by rehearsing and revoking previous bequests, mortify the survivors when the testator is no longer in a position to do so viva voce, form a very curious branch of the subject. Lord Kew was a very wealthy peer of strict principles and peculiarly acrid temper, and, having no wife or children to annoy, he ‘took it out,’ as the saying is, on his brothers, nephews, and other expectant kinsfolk. One gem from his collection I recall, in some such words as these: ‘By a previous will I had left fifty thousand pounds to my brother John; but, as he has sent his son to Oxford instead of Cambridge, contrary to my expressed wish, I reduce the legacy to five hundred pounds.’ May the earth lie light on that benevolent old despot!”

Dr. Forbes (Benignus) Winslow, though of New England stock, was born in London. He studied medicine in New York and afterward at the Royal College of Surgeons. He made a specialty of the treatment of insanity after locating in London, and became noted as an alienist and was at one time President of the Medical Society of London. He reports the following very singular will:

“A certain individual, who having been crossed in love, concluded to end an unhappy and disappointing life, ordered his body to be boiled down, and all the fat to be extracted therefrom to be used in making a candle, which was to be presented to the object of his affections, together with a letter containing his adieus and expressions of undying love. The time chosen for the delivery of the candle and the letter was at night, in order that the lady might read the touching lines by this veritable ‘Corpse Candle.’” The will, the learned Dr. Winslow tells us, was literally carried out.

Frederic Gebhard, once the favorite of the stage and of society, with an income of $100,000 a year, a private car, and blooded horses and dogs, left an estate valued at less than $10,000. His will, making no mention of his widow, was filed September 21st, 1910, in the Surrogate’s office of New York.

Gebhard died at Garden City on September 8th last. His will provides that his entire estate shall be given to his sister, Mrs. Mary Isabel Neilson, who is the mother-in-law of Reginald Vanderbilt.

The will is dated June 21, 1905, some time prior to his marriage to his last wife, formerly Marie Wilson, one of the original Florodora Sextette girls. They were wedded early in 1906, but were reported to have separated. Mrs. Gebhard returned to him some time before he died.

Gebhard attracted public attention over twenty years ago as an admirer of Lily Langtry, who came to this country as a stage beauty. Gebhard accompanied her about the country, and purchased a ranch adjoining her ranch in California. Later she returned to England to become Mrs. Hugo de Bathe, and Gebhard wedded Lulu Morris. She divorced him, and became Mrs. Henry Clews, Jr.

The will of William Farrar of colonial times, related to many St. Louisans, was probated in 1677 in Henrico County, Virginia. This document and the inventory portray the customs of those days. There passed under this will, “one Indian boy named Will, and another named Jack”; there is a recital that the “Hoggs being out and uncertain, and one young mare, are left undivided.” The valuations are in tobacco, the Indian boys being worth 2800 pounds each. This is rather a novel association of the Indian with tobacco.

A few years ago, there died a wealthy English gentleman who directed that the five drawers in his desk be opened on the five consecutive anniversaries of his death. That was all; not a word about the disposition of his large fortune. When the fourth drawer was reached, a sealed letter contained this message: “Have faith and hope, and you will attain unto the fruition of all your desires.” When on the fifth anniversary the last drawer was opened, a properly executed will was found, leaving the property to those who had expected it.

There is a strong tendency on the part of men to draw up their wills in favor of the ladies to whom they are affianced. By thus anticipating what they would probably do after marriage, they not only take duty by the forelock, so to speak, but reap a present reward in the increased ardor of the adored ones.

The will of Mrs. Sophia Striewe, of St. Louis, was filed in the Probate Court in November, 1910. Six-fourteenths of the residuary part of her estate, amounting to seven thousand dollars, it was directed should go the one who did the most for her during her last days. The Probate Judge will probably decline to pass on so delicate a matter.

Quite recently, a Boston philanthropist provided a fund by means of which the school children of that city were insured the proper care of their teeth. Dental statistics show that this act must be considered as far more worthy than any gift of a like nature in the field of philanthropy for many years; it cannot be doubted that the state of the health depends to a very large degree on the condition of the teeth, and actual figures show that only one child in thirty-five has sound teeth, and much of the sickness of the country can be thus accounted for in this impairment of one of nature’s equipments.

When Commodore Vanderbilt was on his death-bed, he was visited by his nephew, Samuel Barton. “Sammy,” he said, “I’ve been thinking all day about Alexander Stewart’s will. I can’t explain it. I can’t understand how the greatest merchant in this country, who began with nothing and made a fortune of millions, who was always clear-headed in business matters—how was it possible for a man of that kind to make such an utter damn fool of himself when he came to write his will?”

A poetic nature and a love for clover blossoms are at once shown by a Michigan testator who devised land to his native village for park purposes; the only rental being “one clover blossom per annum,” which is to be picked on the premises and delivered to his heirs or descendants. No provision seems to have been made for substitute rental in the event of a failure of the clover crop.

Baron Heinrich Wilhelm Stiegel was born in Germany near Manheim, Baden, of a noble and wealthy family, in 1730. Before he was twenty years of age, he ventured into the New World with a fortune of $200,000: he located in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, after having built a home in Philadelphia. He was a man of great note, establishing iron and glass works and other industries, and built an elegant mansion at Manheim, in Lancaster County; the old Lutheran Church in Manheim, built in 1770, was located on ground now occupied by a modern church of the same denomination, built in 1891. Stiegel, by will or an instrument of kindred nature, gave the lot on which the church stands, for a consideration of five shillings and “the annual rental of one red rose in the month of June forever.” The payment of the rose occurs on the first Sunday in June, and is an annual ceremony of great interest; the church officers bear the rose to the altar on a costly tray, and a descendant of the testator comes forward at the request of the minister to receive it. An extended account of Stiegel appears in the proceedings of the Lancaster County Historical Association for September 4th, 1896.

Robert Louis Stevenson, in his directions for his burial, selected the apex of a mountain in the Samoan Islands; it was necessary to employ a great many natives to clear the way to the mountain top. There, in the midst of singing birds, the blooming of flowers, and the tonic of the sea breeze, one may read his epitaph, written by himself, but for another:

“Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig my grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.

“This be the verse you grave for me,
Here he lies where he longed to be,
Home is the sailor, home from the sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.”

Cecil John Rhodes admired the grandeur of the Matoppo Hills in Rhodesia, and directed in his will that he be buried there in a square to be cut out of the rock on the top of a hill at a point which commanded a magnificent view of the surrounding country.

Helen Hunt Jackson, the authoress, was buried at her direction, on Cheyenne Mountain, near the top of Seven Falls, a short distance from Colorado Springs, Colorado; she desired this for her last resting place, on account of her love for the surroundings, which are of rare beauty, and which no doubt gave her inspiration for her literary productions.

Thomas Jefferson, his wife and two daughters are buried near the crest of Monticello, “Little Mountain.”

Monticello, the home of Jefferson, is beautifully situated, and commands a view of the town of Charlottesville, the University of Virginia, and the neighboring country. It has long been known as one of the most picturesque spots in the South. For many years, a monument bearing the following inscription from his own pen marked Jefferson’s grave:

HERE WAS BURIED
THOMAS JEFFERSON
AUTHOR
OF THE DECLARATION OF
AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE
OF
THE STATUTE OF VIRGINIA
FOR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM, AND
FATHER OF THE UNIVERSITY
OF VIRGINIA
BORN APRIL 2D
1743 O.S.
DIED [JULY 4]
[1826]

The old monument was removed about fifteen years ago, and now stands on the campus of the University of Missouri, at Columbia, Missouri, and a more imposing one was erected in its place.

Mr. Jefferson G. James, an old and prominent citizen of San Francisco, died in May, 1910; he was a pioneer cattle dealer and politician; he left a large estate to be disposed of under his will, which was written with his own hand and is an eccentric document. One provision in the nature of advice to the distributees reads as follows:

“Don’t be mean. Don’t pay my employes more than is being paid them now. No outside speculations. No expensive trips to Europe. Spend your money in this country. Buy or build nice residences and live and enjoy yourselves among people you know. The dividends to the small stockholders will assist in the support of a family.”

In a codicil, he recurs to the subject of European travel, which seems to have been a pet aversion; he again says, “No trips to Europe.”

An appeal from a decision of Vice-Chancellor Malins, of London, questioning the rights of M. de Tourville to inherit under his wife’s will, was decided against him.

M. de Tourville was found guilty of murdering his wife by flinging her down a precipice while travelling with her near Botzen, Austria, in July, 1876. The marriage took place in November, 1875, and the lady was a widow possessed of large property. The day after the marriage she made a will, leaving her property to trustees for the benefit of her children, should there be any, but in default of such, she gave the whole to her husband, the husband being cognizant of this arrangement, and thereby, as alleged by the wife’s relations, instigated to commit the crime of which he was subsequently convicted and sentenced to death by the Austrian courts. Having appealed, however, his sentence was commuted to imprisonment for eighteen years.

Under these circumstances, the wife’s relations claimed a declaration that De Tourville was incapable of taking any interest under his wife’s will, and argued that the property belonged to Madame de Tourville’s next of kin.

The Vice-Chancellor refused the application for a commission, on the ground that the question of law should first be determined whether, in his position, De Tourville should lose the benefits conferred on him by the will, and directed an amendment of the pleadings for that purpose.

The case was further complicated by the fact that, previous to his conviction, De Tourville had (not perhaps so cleverly as he thought) assigned his interest under the will to another person.

The Master of the Rolls and Lords Justices James and Bramwell, however, reversed the decision of the Vice-Chancellor, and granted the application for a commission, the Master of the Rolls remarking that he was at a loss to understand why the application should have been refused.

About the year 1875, “Scotch” John Wilson, a native of Scotland, then living near Tecumseh, Nebraska, drove from his home his son, John Wilson, and told him never to darken the doors again. The son had graduated from an Iowa law school and wanted to practise law; the father wanted the son to stay on the farm; they disagreed and this resulted in the son’s being driven from home. He rode away on a circus train and never saw his parents again.

A few years ago, the elder Wilson died, leaving an estate valued at thirty thousand dollars. By his will, he directed that this estate be turned over to any claimant who might appear and say he was the missing son, and who could answer thirty questions. These thirty questions dealt largely with family history, dates, and other matters which were peculiarly within the knowledge of the son.

The son appeared, after an absence of thirty-five years, and answering satisfactorily the thirty questions before the Probate Court, was awarded the estate. After the decision in his favor, he began crying and remarked, “I would have preferred to have seen my mother rather than to take this money.”

On April 15th, 1910, while manœuvering off Kura in Hiroshima Bay, Submarine No. 6 of the Royal Japanese Navy was sunk: her commander, Lieutenant Saguma, and fourteen men were lost. When the vessel was raised two days after the catastrophe, a document written by him was discovered; it is a remarkable instrument and may be regarded as a testamentary log. This paper, written when the commander was slowly choking to death from the gases generated as the submarine lay helpless at the bottom of the sea, is a striking instance of the spirit of silent sacrifice and immolation found in the Japanese character. It reads as follows:

“I have no excuse or apology for having sunk His Majesty’s No. 6 submarine by my carelessness, but the crew of the boat bravely and calmly discharged their duties. We now die for the sake of our country, but we regret that the future development of submarines will receive a heavy blow as the result of this disaster. It is, therefore, my hope that you will engage in deeper study of the submarine without any misapprehension of disasters. If you do this, we shall feel no regret at our deaths. We were making a gasoline dive when the submarine sank lower than was intended, and we tried to close the sluice valve, when the chain unfortunately snapped. I therefore closed the valve with my own hands, but it was too late to avert disaster, and the boat sank with a list of 25 degrees. The boat sank at 10 A.M., and it is now 11.45 A.M. The depth of the water is about ten fathoms. I always expect death when away from home. My will is therefore prepared and in the locker, and I hope Mr. Taguchi will send it with this paper to my father.”

There were numerous other requests, one to the Emperor, an earnest appeal to supply the means of livelihood to the poor families of the crew.

In November, 1909, over three hundred miners were entombed for a period of ten days in a mine at Cherry, near Spring Valley, Illinois. The living were imprisoned with the dead. At the end of ten days, twenty-two miners were rescued; those saved had kept themselves free from fatal gas by building a barricade. Saved from death by suffocation, they were threatened with death by thirst. Two of these men, self-constituted leaders, gave orders for the protection of the community; they conducted religious services and cared for the sick and exhausted, and their directions were strictly carried out.

Two of the miners wrote wills while so imprisoned; they are pathetic documents. The writer of the following will, Joe Pegati, was rescued:

“This is the 4th day that we have been down here. That’s what I think, but our watches stopped. I am writing this in the dark because we have been eating the wax from our safety lamps. I also have eaten a plug of tobacco, some bark and some of my shoe. I could only chew it. I hope you can read this. I am not afraid to die. O Holy Virgin, have mercy on me.

“I think my time has come. You know what my property is. We worked for it together and it is all yours. This is my will, and you must keep it. You have been a good wife. May the Holy Virgin guard you. I hope this reaches you some time, and you can read it. It has been very quiet down here and I wonder what has become of our comrades.

“Good-by until heaven shall bring us together.

“Joe Pegati.”

The writer of the second will, Samuel D. Howard, aged twenty-one, died in the mine; his will in part is in these words: