Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1878 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XXII. WHIMSICAL WILLS. Extraordinary Will cases have a peculiar fascination to many people who are not in the smallest degree interested in the result from a money point of view but only take an interest therein as lovers of the curious. Whimsical Wills have been, and still are, a prolific source of business for lawyers, and Heirs at Law and Next of Kin, are occasionally indirectly benefited by a whimsical testator's Will being upset. Probably a Solicitor is rarely consulted by an intending whimiscal testator, from a natural fear that a damper might be thrown on his designs. Whimsical bequests have sometimes served a very useful purpose, and instances are not unknown of such bequests having been made by lawyers themselves. The following is a case in point. William J. Haskett, a lawyer, who died in New York City, left a Will containing this very curiously worded clause: --I am informed that there is a Society, composed of young men connected with the public press, and as in early life I was connected with the papers, I have a keen recollection of the toils and troubles that bubbled then and ever will bubble for the toilers of the world in their pottage cauldron, and as I desire to thicken with a little savaury herb their thin broth, in the shape of a. legacy, I do hereby bequeath to the New York Press Club, of the City o% New York, 1,000 dollars, payable on the death of Mrs. Haskett. We have a Newspaper Press Fund in London, and a similar legacy to that above noted would doubtless be very acceptable--no matter how curious the language of the bequest. There is probably no more profitable class of business to a lawyer than that arising out of disputes about Wills, and the following extract from a French Advocate's Will pithily..
