Page images
PDF
EPUB

claims upon him, in lieu of its coming into the hands of those for whom the testator properly intended it; and yet would Mr. Locke King and his supporters advocate a return to the old system, by which no formalities were required for the bequest of personalty, and would they extend this also to realty?

Again, the rule of law, that no gift by will in favour of a testator's illegitimate child can take effect unless the child be in esse at the time of making the will, and be particularly specified, is salutary as a general principle, but occasionally is extremely unjust. Take, for example, the following case, which is but one out of many:-A testator, who had married his deceased wife's sister, by his will gave all his property after her decease to his children, and died, leaving by her one son, who was born after the date of the will, but no other children. The son, in the eyes of the law, was illegitimate, and could take nothing; the property, subject to the reputed wife's life-interest, was held to belong to the testator's next of kin. The Master of the Rolls expressed his regret at being obliged to come to that decision, but could not decide otherwise (Pratt v. Mathew, 25 L. J., ch. 409). Now, could this case be brought forward in favour of a change in the law as regards the recognition by the state of illegitimate children?

The fact is, that it is impossible to legislate in such manner that no cases of hardship shall arise from ignorance of the law; and the general expediency of the laws of a country cannot be questioned on the ground that they are unjust and oppressive in a few exceptional cases.

But, to return to our widow. It must not be forgotten that the uses in bar of dower only bar the dower of the woman who was married on or before the 1st January, 1834; they do not affect the rights of any woman married since that day. It is true that many counsel as well as most attorneys have been in the habit of inserting, in all purchase deeds, a declaration barring dower; but this practice is utterly reprehensible, except where the insertion of the obnoxious clause is specially directed by the client. Surely, now that a man may at his own pleasure, by deed

or will, defeat his wife's dower, it is a great injustice to deprive her of it for the sake of the heir, who may perhaps be but a distant relation; and in most cases, if the matter were properly explained to the client, he would object altogether to the declaration in question. We were sorry to find Messrs. Davidson and Wright, in the first volume of their Collection of Precedents (p. 194), apparently countenancing this practice, by giving (without any warning to the unwary) the form of a declaration in bar of dower, as the form in all cases in which a purchaser is a bachelor, or a widower, or has married since the 1st January, 1834; but we were rejoiced to find that they subsequently repented them of the evil they had done, and inserted a note in their second volume (p. 193), to the effect that such a declaration is "unreasonable." The sooner they who "affect conveyancing learn to regard this sound view of the soundest authority in English conveyancing, the better. Still the neglect in drawing— unjustifiable and mischievous in its effects as we admit it occasionally is--is not such a heavy grievance in the aggregate as to afford much aid to Mr. Locke King in his gallant fight for his cherished widows.

ور

The case of the younger children is not so easily disposed of as that of the widow. The arguments put forward in the House of Commons on the 2d March last, by the opponents of the proposed improvement," were neither cogent nor appropriate. The Solicitor-General, escaping from principle, entered into verbal criticisms in default perhaps of being able to introduce personalities, to be applauded by a party. He was informed, very properly, that his remarks would have been pertinent had the House been in committee on the bill, but, as that was not the case, that they were wholly beside the question. The parliamentary inexperience of the young Solicitor-General might have excused the irrelevance of his criticisms had they been fair and reasonable; but they were not so. The heavy demands, however, made upon his powers by the political exigencies of his party, on great occasions of life and death, may be pleaded as an extenuation for a slovenly

performance of his duties as law-officer, on an occasion of practical legislation like that we are alluding to.

The Solicitor-General set out by informing the House that a testator might have made a will devising his real property, and yet have died intestate with regard to his personal property; and that the effect of the bill would be this-there would be an administration under which his real estate would be distributed among his next of kin, in defiance of his will.

Now, no doubt the language of the bill would admit of this interpretation, but the difficulty could easily have been obviated by the insertion of two or three words; and it is an unfortunate confusion of principle and detail-of the essential and accidental -which frequently leads a certain class of minds to make such objections as the Solicitor General here offered, instead of those which are true and substantial. Very few bills of the present (or any other) government would be accepted, if imperfect language and inappropriate phrase were held grounds for rejecting them. What (e. g.) would the Solicitor-General say if his real property measures had been objected to, because the bills he introduced were so obviously absurd that, within a fortnight after their introduction, he himself was compelled to alter, if not amend, more than half the clauses in them?

Another objection raised by the Solicitor-General was, that every real estate in the kingdom would pass to an administrator, and would be liable to be sold by the administrator for payment of the debts of the intestate. This must have been an error of forgetfulness, or arose from his confidence in the ignorance of the House; for only those estates of which a man might die intestate would vest in the administrator.

The Solicitor-General then proceeded to discuss the cases of hardship that would arise out of the bill. "Take the case," said he, "of a man possessing an estate which he had acquired by descent through his mother. Suppose he had one cousin upon his mother's side, and nineteen cousins upon his father's side, under this bill one-twentieth of that estate would go to the cousin on the mother's side, and the other nineteen-twentieths would go to

the cousins on the father's side." This, no doubt, is an unexceptionable proof of what all are aware of, viz. :—that the statutes of distribution occasionally work unfairly; and, had the SolicitorGeneral been advocating an amendment of these statutes, the case would have been in point quantum valeat. But, for our part, we can see no difference in this respect, whether the intestate inherited from his mother an estate, or a hundred thousand pounds in the three pounds per centum consolidated bank annuities.

"Take," continued the Solicitor-General, "the case of a large family estate descending to a married woman who had more sons than one. She had no power to devise; and if this bill (which was said to be for the children) passed, that estate would be taken away from the sons and be given to the husband, who had a statutory right to administer to his wife's property."

We again say, compare with the above hard case anothernamely, that of a hundred thousand pounds devolving upon a married woman without restriction. Would not the whole of this at once belong to the husband? The Solicitor-General's second case, therefore, would be a strong one to cite (if, indeed, such cases are of any worth) in favour of an alteration in the law as regards the rights of the husband in the property of his wife; but neither of the cases so fluently suggested by the eloquent lawofficer of the crown, had any thing whatever to do with the principle involved in Mr. Locke King's bill. But, of course, these observations passed muster, and will be repeated probably whenever the question is again discussed, without hesitation by the one side, or exposure by the other.

The rest of the speech of the Solicitor-General contained no argument which will bear examination. Mr. Lowe truly said, "In the course of the Solicitor-General's lengthened remarks, he had not been able to gather up the question into a single point, nor to show any clear and decisive ground on which the bill should be resisted."

[ocr errors]

Nor were any of the other debaters much more successful. Sir George C. Lewis said :- "When a person made a settlement or a will, whatever provision he made for younger children out of his

real property was so much to their benefit, in addition to what the common law would give them; and therefore, if a large portion was given to the eldest son, and smaller portions to the younger sons and daughters, no feeling of injustice arose, because the portions under the ordinary marriage settlement for the benefit of the younger children were so much in addition to what they would have by descent according to common law. They could have no reason for complaining of injustice or partiality on the part of their parents; but, if this bill became law, that feeling would be entirely inverted. A person who made a marriage settlement, according to the present system of marriage settlements, would be robbing the younger children of the rights which the common law would give them. He would be accumulating upon the head of the eldest son property which was given to him, as it were, capriciously, arbitrarily, and unjustly, in addition to what he would derive in case of intestacy under the common law. Perhaps in our time no great practical change would arise out of that state of things. He durst say, the custom of making marriage settlements might be extended to another generation; but he apprehended that the younger children would feel that they had been robbed of their rights, and that after a time the custom of distributing real estate among the children would obtain."

How is it, we would ask Sir G. C. Lewis, when a testator now leaves his real estate to be divided among all his children, and thus robs his eldest son of the rights which the common law gives him, that the eldest son is not heard to complain of injustice? Ought not Sir George Lewis's argument to apply equally well either way? Or is it that Sir George Lewis has a lurking feeling that injustice is really done to younger children when the eldest son takes the lion's share of the paternal estate; but that it is proper, and for the benefit of the country, that all such feeling should be suppressed? If this be the opinion of the landed gentry, then all we have to say is, that any system which is based on what its supporters feel, but dare not confess to be, injustice, must necessarily be a bad and sinful one, and ought not to be tolerated by members of a Christian community.

« PreviousContinue »