Sarcastic Will
A British sailor requested his executors to pay to his wife one shilling, wherewith to buy hazelnuts, as she had always preferred cracking nuts to mending his stockings.
A Contrite Husband
J. Withipol of Walthamstow, Essex County, England, left his landed estates to his wife, “trusting, yea, I may say, as I think, assuring myself, that she will marry no man, for fear to meet with so evil a husband as I have been to her.”
Aunt Lunky’s Will
The author has sought with little success for wills which would portray the character of the negro race, although the aid of Mr. Booker T. Washington was enlisted in this behalf. One, however, is offered:
Aunt Lunky was a negro servant and resided in Jacksonville, Illinois. For several generations, she had lived with the same family and had been a party to all household duties and functions during that period: she made her will, and her savings, some two hundred and fifty dollars, she left to “little Billie.” “Little Billie” was the great-grandson of her employer, and the pet of the household: in order that there might be no mistake in identifying the legatee, a picture of the baby boy was securely attached to the testament.
Will of the Duchesse de Praslin
By her will made in 1784, this testatrix, strangely enough, disinherited her own children, being falsely persuaded that her husband had substituted for them others whom he had had by an actress. She made her legatees the grandchildren of the Prince de Soubise, whom she did not even know. Her will was contested, and set aside. It contained another singular bequest—that by which she left to her husband a model of the Cheval de Bronze (the equestrian statue of Henri IV. on the Pont Neuf).
Must ever Pray