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Stephen, introduced the case to me, I made a very brief précis of the facts as you presented them, and of these there were one or two which immediately attracted my attention. In the first place, there was the will. It was a very strange will. It was perfectly unnecessary. It contained no new matter; it expressed no changed intentions; it met no new circumstances, as known to the testator.
This is my last will, and I am in sound mind and bodily health. That was all. The will was duly signed and witnessed, and bore a notarial seal. It was dated in the hand of the testator, in addition to the acknowledgment of the notary, all regular, and unquestionably done. "His son!" said Sol, amazed, looking around with big eyes. "Why, Isom he never had no son!"
1 Persons who are in the power of others may be appointed testamentary guardians no less than those who are independent; and a man can also validly appoint one of his own slaves as testamentary guardian, giving him at the same time his liberty; and even in the absence of express manumission his freedom is to be presumed to have been tacitly conferred on him, whereby his appointment becomes a valid act, although of course it is otherwise if the testator appointed him guardian in the erroneous belief that he was free.
There is, however, one case in which the institution of a slave by his mistress is void, even though freedom be given him in the will, as is provided by a constitution of the Emperors Severus and Antoninus in these terms: 'Reason demands that no slave, accused of criminal intercourse with his mistress, shall be capable of being manumitted, before his sentence is pronounced, by the will of the woman who is accused of participating in his guilt: accordingly if he be instituted heir by that mistress, the institution is void. Among 'other persons' slaves' is reckoned one in whom the testator has a usufruct.
Accordingly, seeing that the testator may return at any time and is entitled to find his property intact, I shall ask you for a verdict that will secure to him this measure of ordinary justice." At the conclusion of Mr.
Thus the present law of testament seems to be derived from three distinct sources; the witnesses, and the necessity of their all being present continuously through the execution of the will in order that the execution may be valid, coming from the civil law: the signing of the document by the testator and the witnesses being due to imperial constitutions, and the exact number of witnesses, and the sealing of the will by them, to the praetor's edict.
You never loved them; and ill-will has eyes ever open to the faulty side; as good-will or love is blind even to real imperfections. I will briefly recollect my motives. I found jealousies and uneasiness rising in every breast, where all before was unity and love. The honoured testator was reflected upon: a second childhood was attributed to him; and I was censured, as having taken advantage of it.
It was a mode of declaring who was to have the chieftainship, in succession to the Testator. When Wills are understood to have this for their original object, we see at once how it is that they came to be connected with one of the most curious relics of ancient religion and law, the sacra, or Family Rites.
In cross-examination, however, both these witnesses admitted that the testator was in a great state of passion when he executed the will, and gave details of the lively scene that then occurred. Then the Attorney-General rose to address the Court for the defendants.
Testator at length came to a door with a rusty padlock which his key fitted. Getting the door open with much trouble, and looking in, he found, no coals, but a confused pile of furniture. Alarmed by this intrusion on another man's property, he locked the door again, found his own cellar, filled his scuttle, and returned up-stairs.
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