A remarkable will which has just been granted probate made minute provisions for the care and burial of the testator's pets. I discovered that these wills are not unusual when I mentioned it to a friend who makes a hobby of collecting legal oddities.
He showed me a number of interesting wills, of which he has made cuttings. One which particularly appealed to me ran as follows:
"I leave the property of G and all the property I may be possessed of to my sisters, Maggie and Betsy; to the former because she is married to a minister whom - may God help him - she henpecks; to the latter because she is married to nobody, nor is she likely to be; for she is an old maid and not marketable. I leave my silver decanter to the eldest son of old John, as the representative of the family. I would have left it to old John, but he would have melted it down to make temperance medals, and that would have been sacrilege. I leave to Parson Chavassie my big silver snuffbox as a small token of my gratitude to him for taking my sister Maggie, whom no man of taste would have taken. I leave to John Cadell a silver teapot to the end that he may drink tea therefrom to comfort him under the affliction of a slatternly wife."
It must have been with very mixed feelings that the legatees heard of their good fortune.
The Irish Times, July 18th, 1931