CURIOUS BEQUESTS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 952, 9 February 1911, Page 4

CURIOUS BEQUESTS.

The case of the Auckland lady who left a will bequeathing a sum ot money to be divided among the people who attended her funeral, has a parallel in the will of a Gloucestershire gentleman, who left to his church if the deacons should attend his funeral. Of the friends in the. former case, however, some attended, but in the latter the church was the poorer by the whole sum. In each case the will was not read until after the funeral. In the December number of Chambers Journal, a writer instances some of the whims ot testators, eccentric and otherwise. An old Parisian lady gave elaborate instructions re her interment to her ” dear nephew,” her sole executor. Her body was to be hermetically sealed in a glass casket, the coffin made of Mahogany, lined with lead and padded with satin, and to be laid in an expensive mausoleum. All this was to be done, she concluded,

“ that he may have the satisfaction of knowing that he is pleasing me, even though the expense entailed should be more than my means justify.” The nephew did not think her worth all this expenditure, so he arranged a very modest funeral. When the will was read he found that if he had pleased his aunt he would have received a million francs, but that under the circumstances he came in for only 100 francs *' for the purchase of a souvenir.” Humour of a lighter order was displayed by the Bristol tradesman who left his wile a shilling to buy walnuts with, as, ” being the only thing she really cares for, and which she many times wasted much time in cracking instead of darning ray stockings. ’ ’ Extreme bad taste characterised the bequest ot a Canadian doctor, who left his best pipe to his brother-in-law, ” in gratitude that he married my sister Maggie, whom no man of taste would ever have taken.” Philip, fifth Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery, made in his very remarkable will some strange bequests, among which was ‘‘one of my words,” to Lieutenant-General Cromwell, which he must want, seeing that he hath never kept any of his own.