A SINGULAR WILL.
An attempt to prove a singular will was' made in the Supreme Court on Thursday. The testator was a man named Thomas Bagshawe Chambers, who had been a clerk in the Victoria Insdrancp office. By a will made in February, 1874, he left his property to the University of Melbourne on condition that the income .from the fund was applied annually for prize essays on the following subjects in rotation:—First, "lying," with special allusion to the baneful effects of deceit at the altar upon the solemnization of matrimony, passing through married life in continuous untruthfulness and mocking a dying marital partner in and with falsehood; second, on " moral murder," having particular reference to the evil of persecuting, harassing, and indolent conduct towards such a partner even unto death; third, "thieving," showing the tendency to the destruction of confidence, throughout society by the surviving parent misappropriating, for the purposes of indolent life aforesaid, the patrimony left by the-deceased parent of the children of the marriage. The fund was to be known as the "Alice Gough Perfidy Fund,'' and advertisements for the competition for the prize essay were to be published in the Melbourne papers. It is needless to say that the University rejected a bequest clogged by ; such extraordinary conditions, and the registrar of the University, who had been appointed executor, renounced probate. A. codicil to the will had, however, been made in June, 1874, giving the testator's personal effects to a Mr Burton, of Ballarat, and on behalf of this gentleman the application on Thursday was made. Mr Justice Moleswortb directed that some information should be furnished as to whether Chambers, who died in July last, left any next of kin. The property was valued .at £550. It did not appear who was the lady whom Chambers wished to " damn to everlasting fame" by joining her name to a fund having such questionable objects.—Australasian, Oct. 23rd.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/THS18751116.2.19
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Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2143, 16 November 1875, Page 3
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319A SINGULAR WILL. Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2143, 16 November 1875, Page 3
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