THE CUMULATION OF LEGACIES.
Cumulation, like ademption, very often depends upon the intention of the testator, for it may be his desire to increase a legacy, or he may, through inadvertence, state it twice over. For instance, where a specific thing, as an estate, a horse, or a house, is stated twice over, there is clearly no cumulation. When a like quantity is bequeathed to the same legatee twice in the same instrument—as the will, or stated in the will, and repeated in the codicil, unless the word, “another,” or something equivalent to it, be annexed. So, also, a subsequent statement of a certain sum, as an unconditional legacy, when it had been previously stated as a conditional one, is no cumulation. When, however, two unequal quantities are stated for the same legatee, though they be in the same instrument, they are two legacies, and not one. Such is the case, also, when two equal sums are given by different instruments; and when both legacies are expressed as being given for the same cause, they are not cumulative; it is too apparently an inadvertence. But when two different reasons are assigned they are two legacies; or when the legacies are of different natures, though of the same amount, as one a sum of money, and the other an annuity, or two annuities of similar amount, but differently paid, as one half-yearly, and the other quarterly, or similarly paid, but out of different estates, as one out of real, and the other out of personal, estate.
Extrinsic circumstances will also cumulate legacies, though stated of the same amount; as, when after the date of the will, but before the date of the codicil, the testator has received an increase of fortune, for it is then evident that he intended to dispose of the accession. Indeed other, very slight, circumstances are often admitted as evidences of cumulation.