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________LORD ST LEONARDS'S…

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LORD ST LEONARDS'S WILL. Another illustration has been given of an old proverb. The first real-property lawyer 3f his time made his own will, and placed it in his own box, with the result which has been this week exhibited in the Probate Court. If he had exployed a solicitor, a draft of the will would have been extant, and although the deposit of willa in the Registry of the Court is a modern invention, it was always possible to execute a will in duplicate, and place one part at a bank, while retaining the other in one's own custody. It may be added that, if an ordinary client consulted a solicitor on the preparation of an eighth codicil, be would probably be advised to embody all his testamentary dispositions in a new will. If says Lord St Leonards in his Handy Book, I were a devisee of a living testator, I should like to know that the will was in the new depository. The expense and difficulty occasioned by the deposit would deter many men from capriciously altering their donations." He appears to have over- estimated the expense and difficulty thus incurred His own will was dated 13th January, 1870, and the last, of the series of codicils was dated 20th August, 1873, and without suggesting that his dispositions were capricious, it may be said that they were inconve- niently numerous. Like other teachers of mankind, he might have warned his hearers to be guided by what he said, and not by what he did. I am unwilling," he says to the imaginary recipient of his letters, to give you any instructions for making your will with- out the assistance of your professional adviser." A testator who consulted a lawyer every time he made a will or codicil would be unlikely to execute nine testa- mentary instruments within four years. It being necessary to prove the contents of the will from memory, it would have been difficult to find a better witness than Miss Sugden. The purchase of the Cingsdown estate by the testator was completed in Dec. 1860, and next month he made the will himself, read it slowly to his daughter, and then executed it in the presence of two of his servants. He had made no secret of his inteniion to give the Kingsdown estate to his second son, and when he became alienated from his grandson, he avowed his determination to make Mr Frank Sugden the head of the family. The testator, said that the witness, was much averse to his grandson's marrying, not only because of his youth, but also on account of the trouble which the necessary settlements would involve. It may be remarked that one of these objections to marriage was temporary, but the other permanent. It has been said that, if law will not adapt itself to society, society must adapt itself to law and Lord St Leonards evidently considered a marriage settle- ment more important than marriage itself. In one ot those passages which he supposed suitable for popular reading he combats the objection which has been made to the complicated and expensive machinery" of a settlement. He aaks who ever complained of the cam plex movements in a well-finished watch, and he evi* dently thought the parallel complete and satisfactory. The grandson might have retorted that a watch would I cost less money than a settlement, and might be bought at a minutes notice within a quarter of a mile of Lincoln's Inn. If this great master of English law did not think it the perfection of reason, that was perhaps because be knew that it had been partly made or marrod by certain decisions of Lord Brougham. But w« may assume that tbia comparison of a marriage settlement to a watch was satisfactory to his own mind. We admire the connexion of its parts depending on each other. and all necessary to furm the combination which produces the desired results." The question whether conveyancing as practised in England ia a good in itself or a utecostiry evil never presented itself to the mind of Lord St. Leonards. "Wby," he asks, "should we oomplain of a well. digested settlement ?" We m,,y at least tdtbit that the troubles of ownir.g property in England aro less than those of owning none. But it it a new and strange version of noblesse oblige to hear that the young heir to a peerage must not marry because tne indispensable settlements would be tronbiMome. Settte?eotf," aayathe ?aM? ?oot, "are the result of &be hnpro?e- ments of centuries they meet the wishes and wants of mankind, and art open to no sensible inconvenience." A carefully drawn will might with equal justice be compared to a well-finished watch, aud it might be added that both are liable te be lost. This eminent conveyancer doubted wnether to admire more Fines and Recoveries or the statute which abolished them. On inspection, he says, we shall find how great a debt we owe to our leg- ancestors for the very forms of which we complained. Thev were invented to obviate the injustice of prior ltwo, and have led to the system under which we have flourished. Whether the pros- perity ot this country was attained by or in spite of ita system of property law was a question not considered hy Lord St. Leonards. But as be was fond of mechani- cal illuitrations, he might have compared that law as be knew it in bis own professional life to an ing>-nioas loek of which the key had been mislaid, and therefore it wa* necessary to pick it. The clear evidence of Miss Sudgen removed much of the difficulty of this case. She was present at the execution of all the codicils on each occasion she saw the will, and she read it twice or thrice. When the last codicil was made, the testator locked up the will with the codicils in bis will box and said, I have done the last earthly thing I wish." The box was placed in its uaual position on the floor of the room in which the testator sat and wrote. On his illness Miss Sudgen took charge of the box, and retained it until her father was able to leave his room. It was then replaced by her in its old position, and remained there until Mareh or April 1874, when her father being again confined to his room by illness, she again took charge of it, and retained its custody until the testator's death in January last The box was opened after the funeral by Mr Trollope, solicitor, and when lie announced that the will was not in it, Miss Sudger wrote out, at the suggestion of Mr Trollope, and without referring to any document, the provisions of the will as she remembered them. Her father declared that it was the duty of every man so to arrange his affairs that there should be no possi- bility of dispute as to the disposition of bis pro- perty after his death, and in his last illness be fre- quently expressed satisfaction at having -io settled his own affairs. The cross-examination of the witness only confirmed her evidence. She bad several ideas" on the subject of the disappearance of the will, but she had been told, she said, to adhere to facts. Other witnesses deposed to hearing declarations by the testa- tor of his intention to give, or of his having given, he Kingsdown estate to his son the Rev Frank Sugden, and of his having suitably provided for his unmarried daughter. Mr Frank SugJen stated tbat after his father's death he found in an inner drawer of an escritoire used by the deceased a duplicate key of the will-box, and there were five keys in the house with which the escritoire could be opened. Some editor of the Handy Book may perhaps venture to add to it a suggestion that, if you do keep your own will, you should endeavour to make it more safe than the tea or sugar of an occupant of furnished lodgii gs. Mr Sudgen has bad many offers from Spiritualists to furnish tidings of the missing will, but he baa not availed himself of their assistance. We assume, however, that the reward of E500 is as much open to be earned by a medium" as by anybody else. The rule of law is that, if a will, traced to the posses- sion of the deceased, and last seen there, is not forthcoming at his death, it is presumed to have been destroyed by himself, and that pr sumption must have effect unless there is sufficient evidence to repel it. But this presumption, which is raised by facts may be rebutted by other facts which raise a higher degree of probability to the contrary. The onos of proof of such facts is on the party propounding the will. The argument of council against the will aimed at show- ing that this onus had not been sustained, and probably this argument assisted the Court to an immediate decision on the case. It is a good help to a judge to find that an able and experienced advocate has little to say in support of his client's jase. A most reasonable theory" propounded by defendant's council ii;, that the deceased on looking over his will, secing the state in which he had left it by obliterations, interlineations, and the disposition of the several codicils, destroyed it with the intention of making a new one, and that fail- ing health and energy prevented him from carrying the intention in'.o effect. If we accept this as the most reasonable theory which its authors could invent, W9 may be tolerably satisfied with a decision adverse to their clients. Lord St. Leonards was not only a great lawyer but a man of strong common sense, and it is incredible that be would have destroyed an old will before be bad made a new one. There is. said the Judge, great danger in adopting evidence derived from the recollection ot any witness, and more especially when that witness is an interested party. But there would also be great danger if, when, through fraud or accident, a will could not be produced, the Court were to be precluded from receiving such evidence. If these remarks and others which followed appear commonplace, we must remember that the case presented no difficulty commensurate with the interest it has excited. Indeed the cause of that interest has been, not so much facts as surmises, with which the Judge could have nothing to do. He regre ted that he had not the assistance of a draft of the will in question, and we have already remarked that this was the consequence of the testator being his own law- yer. It seems that he wrote out this will from a previous one, without making anything that could properly be called a draft. The evidence of a professional man would have been more satisfactory, said the Judge, than that given by a lady. But this was a mere conventional opinion, and it may be doubted whether he really thought so. If Miss Sugden understood the Handy Book, she must be the equal of many lawyers, and when next the question is mooted of admitting ladies to professions, we shall feel rather pressed by this example of capacity. Ladies have been distinguished in mathematics, philosophy, and medicine, but we do not remember an historical nor even a living American example of a female lawyet, and those which occur in fiction are not flattering, although possible, creations. It can hardly be doubted that Miss Sudgen was able to understand and remember the limitations of the Kingsdown estate, and it is not probabte that the testator gave himself the trouble of writing out unnecessarily verbose or com- plicated clauses. Although a settlement or will drawn by a lawyer is not so beautiful as a work of art as Lord St. Leonards thought, yet he bad done much in his long and laborious life to improve the practice in which he delighted, and he was not a lover of prolixity for its own sake. To the suggestion that the testator bad destroyed the will the Judge answered that he could find no assignable motive for that proceeding, He could not think that the testator would destroy the instrument, and thus throw all his affairs into confusion and bring about that litigation which be was so anxious to avoid. His opinion was that that the testator died in the belief that the will was in existence. It is almost a disappointment to find that the Judge has nothing more to say than this, and that critics of his judgment can only agree in it. It seems, too, that the case will hardly bear further litigation.- Saturday Review.

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