greater in some degree, or constituted in the sum a higher moral force, than those presiding over the organization of previously-existing governments. If this be true, it is fair to conclude that there ought to be evolved here a nobler and truer conception of the function of government than in those countries where the rights of primogeniture, hereditary rule, the union of church and state, property qualifications for the franchise, etc., are still principles incorporated in the administration-cardinal principles in the foundation of the state. Of course, it does not follow that the first political economist, to give the true definition of the function of government, should be born or reared under free or other institutions. The world is always the country of the philosopher. But it is difficult to resist the belief that at least some of the conclusions of Mr. Spencer have been biased by his environment-by the special wrongs resulting from the taxation of the people to support an established church, for example.

...

Where church and state are united, it may be that the establishment of state education would prove disastrous. "Institutions," as he says, "dependent for their vitality upon the continuance of existing arrangements, naturally uphold these . . change threatens them, modifies them, eventually destroys them. On the other hand, education, properly so called, is closely associated with change, is its pioneer, is the never-sleeping agent of revolution, is always fitting men for higher things, and unfitting them for things as they are. Therefore, between institutions whose very existence depends upon man continuing what he is, and true education, there must always be enmity."

to pos

Now, this argument from Mr. Spencer ("Social Statics") against state education, while it applies signally to governments supporting an established religion, does not apply to a republic, one of whose fundamental principles is" to promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty' terity. On the contrary, I submit that it is a most able argument in favor of state education where, as in this country, from the very nature of our political principles, it must be secular, and may be ethical, but never sectarian. It is conceded that there can be no better possible use for the people's wealth, in a republic, than that of increasing the intelligence of the citizens. The cause of the failure of republican governments to realize what has been hoped for them by their founders is, I believe, attributable mainly to the ignorance of the people in respect to the principles underlying democratic government-the due inculcation of the responsibility resting upon each citizen for the maintenance of the stability and growth of the national prosperity; and, further, that it must be a vital oversight in the beginning of all republics to make no provision for the teaching of those principles in every school in the realm.

Mr. Spencer says: "Conceding for a moment that the government is bound to educate a man's children, what kind of logic will demonstrate that it is not bound to feed and clothe them?" I do not see that such a

deduction is legitimate from the premise. As well might it be argued that because the government is bound to protect a man's property from the pillage of neighboring savages, it is bound to protect his granaries from the invasion of rats. The government, it seems to me, is bound, in its corporate capacity, to do that for the citizens which they cannot do for themselves in their individual capacity. The postal service, the coining of money, the keeping of statistics and national records, are some of the functions which neither the individual nor the small aggregations of individuals forming townships can perform for themselves any more than they can protect themselves from pirates or invading enemies. Neither are small and poor communities able to guarantee good education to their members, though the growing sense of the importance of thorough instruction causes untold anxiety, disappointment, and a demoralizing despair where it cannot be attained. Mr. Spencer, in his "Social Statics," labors to show that children's rights "are not violated by a neglect of their education." He says that "omitting instruction in no way takes from a child's freedom to do whatsoever it wills in the best way it can; and this function is all that equity demands." I do not see that, under the definition of state-duty as given by Mr. Spencer, the state is really bound to do any thing, not even to repel invasion; for, surely, where a community is struggling unaided to put down insurrection, or to repel barbarian invaders, it is still fully exercising its "faculties; so, also, is it when lynching a criminal, or otherwise administering justice "in the best way it can."

Does it not seem fair to conclude that this limited conception of human rights and the function of government owes its being rather to the contemplation of the multitude of political and administrative abuses than to the fact-which Mr. Spencer admits-that more perfect conditions for the exercise of the faculties are being evolved, and that the belief in those conditions is a potent factor in bringing them into existence? The rights of human beings, the rights of children, must involve something more than the liberty to do whatever they will in the best way they can. Certainly the mothers, if not the fathers, of "these little ones " will never admit that they have not, by the very fact of being brought into life, the natural right to food, clothing, shelter, education, and tender care; and, further, that whatever of these rights the individual, the family, or the small community, cannot secure to them in their individual capacity, the government—that is, the people in their corporate capacity should guarantee them as a part, and-if a distinction be justifiable—the most vitally important part of its function.

But the author of "Social Statics," in the preface to the American edition of that work, admits that some of his deductions he would qualify, had he to restate them; and he specifies in this connection the chapter upon "The Rights of Children."

In regard to state taxation for the relief of paupers-those who are too old or too infirm to earn their daily bread-Mr. Spencer

may be right. He believes that "there could hardly be found a more efficient device for estranging men from each other, and decreas ing their fellow-feeling, than the system of state almsgiving;" that, in short, it in ever ry way defeats the object it is intended to gain. The question of the proper limits of charity, and the fittest manner for its exercise, covers a wide field. For ages the best minds have attempted its solution, and considerable progress has been made since the code of Lycurgus was in force, which rendered legal the strangling at birth of all children who were not likely to develop into warriors or athletes. Still we hear people to-day commending the wisdom of that law. Possibly it would not be morally wrong to destroy at birth what are termed monsters, but the general intelligence of the public decrees that they be preserved, as long as they may be, for the benefit of science.

That in the struggle for existence the fittest will survive is a law of Nature; but no one will deny that in that struggle the weaker have the right to every aid possible in their environment; therefore it follows that in human society the weaker members, the unfortunate of all classes, have the right to scientific treatment and to the sympathy they are able to excite to all aids possible in the higher development of human beings. The poor, the children of parents unable to buy for them the training afforded by the scien tific methods of the present day, are an unfortunate class; and the struggle for education is the struggle for existence, since to be shut out forever from the vivifying light of modern thought, modern scientific achievements, and from a knowledge of the methods by which those achievements have been attained, is to be but partially alive; for it is to have the senses and most of the mental faculties but feebly developed and practically useless, like the eyes of the blind fish in the Mammoth Cave. MARIE HOWLand.

They answer to my heedless feet

With crispness in their tone:
"Tread lightly for the beauty's sake
Thine eyes in us have known;
We were but shadows, when we glowed
In crimson, of thy pride;
We still are shadows of its fall,
And just before it glide!"

I would the withered leaves were fair,
That I might shun to tread
Their dying verdure in the dust

With which my hopes fall dead:
For when, in crimson and in gold,
My ripened joys shall flame,
The brief, bright beauty of the leaves
Is theirs-to sere the same!

WILLIAM C. RICHARDS,

THE UNKNOWN PICTURESQUE.

THE

HE State of New York, rich in every thing else, is also rich in the unknown picturesque. It exists in quiet corners, away from the great, well-known, and world-renowned Niagaras, and Hudson Rivers, lakes, bays, and small historical houses, Washington headquarters, and all that sort of thing; here and there by a quiet river, or a little lake, sometimes called a pond, you find a beautiful house, a sweet, reserved beauty, one which hides, behind fine old trees, the graces of an almost perfect domestic architecture.

Three such houses happen to be among my acquaintances. One of them, built by a former governor of the State, stands on the

brink of the loveliest little sheet of water possible. I always think of the miraculous draught of fishes when I stand on its shore; there is something Scriptural in its serene quietude-it recalls that Sea of Galilee on whose shores such gentle lessons were taught. At eventide it is so opaline, so tender, so lovely, reflecting, as it does, hills wooded to the top, and beyond them the sunset, that I long to lay my hand on its serene surface, as I would on the brow of a child. The peace and purity are marvelous; it is almost pathetic in its presence to think how noisy, and quarrelsome, and disturbed, the world is outside.

The house is a substantial and handsome

one, with wings running back. Unfortunately, the front is disfigured by an attic portico, the rage for the Parthenon, following on Lord Elgin's discoveries, haring just then fired the American mind, so that they imagined our immediate forefathers-that a Greek temple was the best pattern for a house. The interior of the house contains a circular staircase, which is very beautiful, and very valuable, taking up very little room, being ornamental, at the same time sincere, built of cherrywood, to which time

has brought a rich red color as handsome as that of mahogany. It is strange that this matter of staircases is so little understood. Here is one success, yet the neighborhood did not copy it. The adjoining towns are full of monstrous, ugly, and inconvenient staircases, with one or two exceptions. I say adjoining towns, for this house, with its exquisite lake lying twenty rods from its front-door, is six miles from anywhere. It stands embowered in hills, bathed in solitude; within is every luxury, every refinement; yet you approach it by a lonely road, through a forest, when it breaks upon yon with green hills tumbling in on every side, with this sheet of water, which would be a famous place of resort in Europe, and you

utter:

66

Full many a flower is born to blush unseen." This is the unknown picturesque, this is the "gem of purest ray serene."

Another old house, in the same neighborhood, is interesting chiefly from its irregularity. It has no architectural claims-it is wandering and purposeless-but it stands on a babbling brook

"The lapidary brook makes music for them all "and certain high pines shade it from the sun. Here came the founder of the family in 1798, and cut down the trees with which his house is built. He made a vast and beautiful drawing-room, as if he were Duke of Devonshire; he paneled it with the wild - cherry, which now has the same rich, red, dark color as the staircase at the lake. He built a beautiful staircase, so that ladies in pompous brocades could go up and down. It is wide and grand, with a tasteful balustrade. He built a library which his clergyman son-in-law filled

[NOVEMBER 6,

with books-rare old folios, dark, old Latin fathers, sermons in stones they might be called, for they are quite as heavy. There they lie now, with Time at work at them, gnawing their leathern backs, and rusting their fine mediæval metal clasps. These are curious books, wanting only a reader. What would not the boy Chatterton have given for an hour in this old library?

Here, in the early days, the deer came down to drink from the brook, and the lady in stately brocade could look from her window and see the noble antlered son of the forest at his morning or evening tipple. One legend of the place is, that, as they were all at breakfast, word came that the deer were drinking in the brook, and one had caught his antlers in a tree. One young man rushed out and killed him with a carving-knife; steel thus got at the venison before it was brought to table.

Many are the legends clustering round such an old house. The first one in the county, built with incredible labor and hardship, it still remains-within, one of the most beautiful; without, one of the most interesting. There was much more individuality in the people then, and less patent machinery. Things were done honestly.

But the third house demands more elaborate description. It stands alone, in its own green park with lofty trees, long avenues, and has behind it a mountain wooded to the top with the "forest primeval."

"The murmuring pines and the hemlocks"

form the lullaby and the nightly serenade; a garden, laid out in prim borders, quaint beds, long alleys, stretches behind the house toward an orchard, which ends only at the foot of the mountain. Sweet, old-fashioned flowers, pinks, and gilly-flowers, roses, lilies, phloxes, poppies, peonies, sweet-peas and mignonette, bluebells and ladies'-slippers, life-everlast ing, and sweet-lavender, these flaunt, flourish, and perfume the air, in the old-fashioned garden. Gooseberry and currant bushes grow in thickets, and three generations of children have played in its honeysuckle am buscades. It is retired and secluded, yet filled with a generation of memories. Young men and maidens, now gray-haired and elderly, have flirted and blushed in yonder summer-house, and the roses have budded, bloomed, and faded, for seventy Junes.

As for the house itself, it is almost per fect-long, and low, and synthetical, it con sists of a centre and two wings. The entrance is a Dutch porch, in which a bed room is built over the front door, supported by two pillars. This is hung with vines, and is the prettiest, quaintest thing in the world. It looks like Nuremberg; it is beautiful and convenient. The lady who sits at that lattice should be like the one imaged forth in County Guy: "

"To beauty shy, at lattice high,
Sings high-born cavalier."

The house is built of wood, and profusely and tastefully ornamented with wood-carv ings; vines, vases, and architectural ornaments, follow one another over the Dutch porch, all in perfect taste. Real green vines

in great luxuriance, almost as beautiful as English ivy, festoon the whole front of the house. The hall goes through the house, and, as one door swings open, another opposite it opens and reveals the garden and the mountain. In this hall, and a continuation of it in the shape of a back-piazza, the family spend their lives, neglecting as they do so a parlor which is in its way a gem. For here the architect, taking the Ionic order for his text, has built a beautiful room of wood. All the high fireplace and its adjacent mouldings are of wood, quaintly carved. Two inches are let in on either side of the fireplace, just large enough for a table, a vase of flowers, or an easy-chair. These are outlined by Ionic pilasters. In the corners of the room Ionic pilasters are turned cornerwise, giving a beautiful effect of finish. It is paneled about three feet from the floor; little, old-fashioned windows let in an insufficiency of light. This could be improved upon. The dining-room, a plainer apartment, has still some good wood paneling, and is a cheerful, well-proportioned

room.

But the glorious great fireplaces, with three picturesque wood-fires, where yet the wood from the near hill-side affords material to keep the family hearth alight, are the chief beauties of these pretty, old-fashioned rooms. I know no such good company as a wood-fire. It is the very best society, genial, sympathetic, and suggestive. You can paint what pictures you wish in these coals and dying embers, and, as the flames mount and aspire, so do your thoughts, with no crabbed interposition of Fate to kill your ambition. The old house is in a lofty altitude, fifteen hundred feet above the level of the sea, and the evenings and mornings are cool. In the latter part of September the fire becomes very comfortable-in fact, all through the summer the brass andirons and the brass fender are kept very bright, and a few logs are laid, with an underpinning of pine-cones, ready for the obedient match.

Beyond all the rooms, stretching out toward the kitchen and offices, which enjoy a long extension to themselves at the back of the house, lies what was once a kitchen, now a servants' dining-room. And oh, what a ballroom! Cleared of its tables, what "Sir Roger de Coverleys" have been danced up and down its hard, polished oak floor! The third generation from the founder is now, at this moment, working off the ichor of youth to the music furnished by two sons of Africa. Thither come the youths and maidens as they did seventy years ago to dance. One gentleman of the neighborhood claims to have danced in that kitchen fifty years ago, and he is still the chief ornament of the parties of to-day. The German cotillon, an exotic of distinction, has, of course, in the present age, been added to the contra-dance of the past; but, out of deference to the past, the Virginia Reel is never omitted.

and hungry, and being taken before the great wood-fire in this abounding kitchen, watched with interest the pendent goose roasting before the great logs, and heard the kettle sing welcome as it hung from the crane. Now a modern kitchen, with "improvements," has

smiles, and adds new charms to the old house.

The whole aspect of the place is like that of an old English rectory. Miss Mitford could revel in the garden. Miss Austin would hide one of her quiet heroines in just

Cooking over a wood-fire was very toilsome to the cook, but it had a superiority like that of a real camel's-hair shawl, real wood-carving, or real jewels, over imitation. It was vastly better, if well done, than any other. It required talent, patience, work, and good luck; the wood must not smoke, the coals must have reached that glow where, as the poet says

met,

"One shade the more, one ray the less, Had half impaired that nameless grace." But, when "the hour and the woman then beefsteaks were glorified, and pumpkinpies became a beatific vision fit for the appreciation of Brillat Savarin.

As I have looked at the old house from an eminence, with its wandering dependencies of wings, wash-houses, smoke-houses, and ice-houses, all nicely masked with trees, with its ample barns and stables, and yards for cows, and pigs, and poultry-a little empire by itself, holding all the material of selfpreservation for its garrison independently of the outer world I have thought of Retzsch's "Song of the Bell," that particular sketch of comfort and prosperity which he draws just before the fire comes which sweeps it all off. So far the Fire-King has spared the honest, wandering old house. May he long spare it!

So lonely is its situation, a mile from the village, that the owls come down from the forest and hoot at night, and bats float in at the open parlor-window as the piano gives forth "Batti Batti," according to a family wit. Squirrels in great colonies chatter, and chirp, and live unmolested in the trees of the lawn, and afford amusement to the lazy lounger on the grass, as, lying at full length with pipe in mouth, he takes his dolce far

niente.

It is a great place to be lazy in, a sort of comfortable Adirondack trip, with the advantage of a house to camp and eat in. Its comparative isolation has been preserved by the accidental absence of railroads near it. It was long shunned by these modern improvements, much to its advantage. Now, however, a shrieking engine has invaded the orchard, and has sent the hamadryads weeping to their molested solitudes.

vokes Washington Irving's description to reach the yellow of the pumpkin, the red of the apple, the russet tints of the ripening grain. And after the first frost, then is the old place hung in purple, and scarlet, and gold. Maples light up their autumnal lanterns all down the long avenue, and at its foot the moon rises in serenest majesty.

The story of the old house is this: A large tract of land, one of the military grants, was given by a Revolutionary officer to his son. Eight hundred acres off in the forest cannot have been a very easily-han. dled gift, one would think, to the young lawyer on the Hudson. But he took it, and went out bravely to fell the trees and build his house. He did it well. He sent to Philadelphia-then a fortnight's journey offfor his architect, and, not having been bitten by the American idea that every man can do every thing without education, he hired skilled workmen to do all his work for him.

It remains to praise him, for the beams do not give, the chimneys do not smoke, the beauty and sincerity of his work are here. The old house stretches its wings over its young owner- - third generation from its founder and promises to protect him and his, as it has done his ancestors. Peace be to its foundations! May the industry and energy which built it descend, and the hospitality which has ever been its characteristic, continue, as long as one beam remains upon another!

The old house has one terrible defect. It has no ghost. Without a good ghost, no old house is perfect. In vain have its inmates tried to get up a headless lady, or a two-headed man, or a shrouded, bloody mys. tery. It always turns out to be a cat, or a dog, or a perfectly uninteresting broomstick with a towel hung over it. No ghost will accept a lodgment. It is an aristocratic want, a defect in the family tree. The old house has seen its sorrows; brave and beautiful young men have been borne dead from its portals; sad and incomplete lives have hidden their sorrows under its shade. Hither have come aching hearts, smarting under fresh grief. Little bands of children have trooped about it in mock military array, when lo! one has dropped out, one soldier has laid down his gun forever; and the music has ceased, and for some hearts a muffled drum has beaten, never to be silenced.

The old, they whose gray hairs made the fireside sacred, and the garden-walks historical, they who presided at the family board for half a century, they have gone, but they return not, save in the form of loving memories.

In one corner of this ballroom-kitchen hangs an historical crane in a great brick chimney and stone fireplace. When Longfellow's "Hanging of the Crane" came out, this now-disused engine of hospitality became curious and historical. Old friends told tales

All that is morbid, all that is terrible, shuns, so far, the dear old house. It accepts the mingled joy and sorrow of a common destiny, but has no "picturesque and gloomy

594

THE

HE making of a man's last will and tes tament is one of the most momentous acts of his life. No matter how frivolous or indifferent a man may be, he cannot but recognize the gravity and responsibility of an act that will live after him, long after the hand that traced it has mingled with its kindred dust. It is then that men avail themselves of the best and sometimes the only opportunity of declaring their mind to the world. They feel that, however much their acts or thoughts may have been ignored or spurned by an unfriendly or unwilling world, they will for once command attention when they pen their last thoughts and directions in a testament. Accordingly, we find many who have smarted by the world's rebuffs, "the proud man's contumely," or who have been victims of its injustice or disappointment, who now vent their opinions about men and things most freely and fully, railing sometimes in a cynical manner at men's profes sions, practices, and pursuits, and leaving behind them a protestation against sham, against perfidy of friends, or against hollow. ness of pretension.

As a phase of human nature, it cannot fail to prove interesting to examine a few of the remarkable and curious wills people have written. There we see the outcomings of their affections, the nature and objects of their antipathies, their opinions upon a va riety of subjects, their idiosyncrasies, and their vagaries.

Generally there are directions as to the place or manner of burial, as to be buried near a wife or some member of a family: in one case a testator directed that he should be buried between the graves of his first and second wives, without regard, it is supposed, to the opinion of either. Many limit the expenses of their burial and funeral - pageant; and others totally forbid any display whatever. Thus, in the case of the will of Mr. Zimmerman, proved in Doctors' Commons, in 1840, there were directions for his funeral; and he accompanied them with something like a threat in case they were not carried out. He says: "No person is to attend my corpse to the grave, nor is any funeral-bell to be rung,

and my desire is to be buried plainly and in a decent manner, and if this be not done, I will come again, that is, if I can."

The Countess-Dowager of Sandwich, in her will, written by herself at the age of eighty, which was proved in November, 1862, expresses her wish "to be buried decently and quietly-no undertakers' frauds, or cheating, no scarfs, hat-bands, or nonsense.”

Mrs. Kitty Jenkyn Packe Reading, who died in 1870 abroad, desired her remains to be first put into a leaden coffin, then inclosed in a wooden coffin, and taken as freight to her residence, Branksome Tower, in England. And, foreseeing that the dimensions of the entrance to her residence would not be sufficient to admit the corpse in this manner, she directed the window of one of the parlors to be taken out, in order to admit her remains.

Not a few testators give directions as to the disposition of their remains after death. Thus, Mr. William Kensett, who died in October, 1855, left his body to the directors of the Imperial Gas Company of London, to be placed in one of their retorts and consumed to ashes. If not, he directed it to be buried in the family grave in St. John's Wood Cemetery, to assist in poisoning the neighborhood. Generally, the curious wills are homemade, but this of Mr. Kensett was made by a solicitor.

But a far stranger direction than this was in the case of Morgan vs. Boys, reported in Taylor's "Medical Jurisprudence," and which was brought under judicial decision. The testator devised his property to a stranger, and wholly disinherited his next of kin, and directed that his executors should " cause some parts of his bowels to be converted into fiddle strings, that others should be sublimed into smelling - salts, and that the remainder of his body should be vitrified into lenses for optical purposes." In a letter attached to the will, the testator said: "The world may think this to be done in a spirit of singularity or whim, but I have a mortal aversion to funeral-pomp, and I wish my body to be converted into purposes useful to mankind." The will was attacked on the ground of insanity; but it was shown that the testator had conducted his affairs with great shrewdness and ability, that, so far from being imbecile, he had always been regarded by his associates through life as a person of indisputable capacity. It was declared a valid will, and, in the opinion of the judge who heard it, it was nothing more than eccentricity. This would hardly be the decision of a court here at present. Many wills have been refused probate on the ground of a disgusting fondness for brute animals. Taylor reports one case where the testatrix, an unmarried female, kept fourteen dogs of both sexes, which were provided with kennels in her drawing-room. In another case, a female, who lived by herself, kept a multitude of cats, which were provided with regular meals, and furnished with plates and napkins. This strange fondness for animals, in solitary females, is not altogether unusual, and therefore cannot be regarded as any certain indication of insanity.

In June, 1828, the London papers recorded the singular will of an English testa

tor, named Garland, containing the following clause:

"I bequeath to my monkey, my dear and amusing Jacko, the sum of ten pounds sterling per annum, to be employed for his sole use and benefit; to my faithful dog Shock, and my well-beloved cat Tib, a pension of five pounds sterling; and I desire that, in case of the death of either of the three, the lapsed pension shall pass to the other two, between whom it is to be equally divided. On the death of all three, the sum appropriated to this purpose shall become the property of my daughter Gertrude, to whom I give this preference among my children because of the large family she has, and the difficulty she finds in bringing them up."

It has been remarked that testators often speak their minds freely of others; and wives have not escaped the aspersions which are sometimes contained in a will. The ills and jars of domestic life may have borne so heavily on a man during his lifetime, that they are vividly and painfully remembered at its close, when he is about to make his last declaration. Then, if he could never

during lifetime have the final word, he certainly thinks at last he has found an occasion to deprive his wife of her inalienable, prescriptive right, and turn the scale in his own favor. A man, at such a time, has been known to call his wife "jealous, disaffectionate, calumnious, reproachful, censorious," in his will, and perpetuate his wife's "unprovoked and unjustifiable fits of passion, violence, and cruelty."

A person dying in London, 1791, provides for his wife as follows:

"Seeing that I have had the misfortune to be married to the aforesaid Elizabeth, who, ever since our union, has tormented me in every possible way; that, not content with making game of all my remonstrances, she has done all she could to render my life miserable; that Heaven seems to have sent her into the world solely to drive me out of it; that the strength of Samson, the genius of Homer, the prudence of Augustus, the skill of Pyrrhus, the patience of Job, the philosophy of Socrates, the subtlety of Hannibal, the vigilance of Hermogenes, would not suffice to subdue the perversity of her character; that no power on earth can change her, seeing that we have lived apart during the last eight years, and that the only result has been the ruin of my son, whom she has corrupted and estranged from meweighing maturely and seriously all these considerations, I have bequeathed, and I bequeath, to my said wife the sum of one shilling, to be paid unto her within six months after my death."

But the joys, the tender experiences, the mutual good-will and affection of conjugal life, are not less sometimes happily remembered, and lovingly mentioned. Mr. Sharon Turner, the eminent author of "The History of the Anglo-Saxons" and other works, who died in 1847, delights thus to speak of his wife who was dead:

"It is my comfort to have remembered that I have passed with her nearly forty-nine years of unabated affection and connubial happiness, and yet she is still living, as I earnestly hope, under her Saviour's care in a superior state of being. . . . None of the portraits of my beloved wife give any adequate represen

tation of her beautiful face, nor of the sweet and intellectual expression of her living features and general countenance and character."

The care of testators in regard to their wives is very frequently evinced in a will with respect to some prohibition of marriage, whether out of consideration for the happiness of the widow, or of the probable husband, might be conjectured.

This restraint is allowed by the law in this case, because of the interest which a man has in his wife remaining a widow. But what is sauce for the goose is not sauce for the gander in this instance, for a wife has not the same privilege in prohibiting her husband remarrying.

Husbands have exercised this right for a long time, and courts have supported it. Walter Frampton, Mayor of Bristol, who died on December 6, 1388, left his wife a very large property, but with this strict injunction :

"Item: I desire that, in case the said Isabella shall remarry, and this matter can be proved, my executors shall consider themselves bound to withhold from the aforesaid Isabella all the aforesaid legacies, and shall expel her from all participation therein forever, making a triple proclamation of the same by sound of trumpet at the high cross."

An instance of a remarkable case of this sort occurred in Pennsylvania, and is reported in the tenth volume of "The Pennsylvania State Reports" under the head of "Commonwealth vs. Stauffer," p. 350. The case was brought before the court in connection with the will of Mr. William Geigley, and, as an example of curious foresight and exactness in a testator, together with an unusual sentimental effusion by a court in condemning such a restraint upon marriage, it well deserves attention. The testator thus provided in a clause of his will:

"I will and bequeath to my loving wife, Susan Geigley, all my real and personal estate that I am possessed of (with a few exceptions that I will afterward bequeath to my brother George), provided my wife remains a widow during her life. But, in case she should marry again, my will is she then shall leave the premises, and receive all the money and property she had of her own, or that I received of hers. . . . It is my will and desire that, if my wife remains a widow during her life on the premises, after her death all the money or property that I got or had of my wife's shall be paid to her friends whomsoever she wills it to; and all the property belonging to me as my own at my death (not including my wife's part) I will and bequeath to my father and mother, if living. But, if they are both deceased, my will is that my brother George Geigley and my sister Catharine Geigley shall have the whole of that part or share that was my own, to them, their heirs, and assigns, forever."

The wife married again, as would be very probable, and the surplus of the real estate went to the mother. On the first trial, the judge before whom the case was heard was shocked by this restraint imposed on his widow by the testator, and, as a piece of fine judicial argument, it is worthy of being quoted in these days of sober, matter-of-fact, prosaic decisions by courts. He concludes as follows, holding the condition void: