Excerpt from Bequests for Masses: For the Souls of Deceased Persons; An Examination of the Present Condition of the Law in the United States Regarding the Validity of Bequests of This Character It is a common saying amongst lawyers that the man who makes his own will is the special bene factor of the legal profession. His object is to save a few dollars from the lawyers, and the method he adopts very commonly results in caus 'ing the lawyers to draw many hundreds of dollars from his estate after his decease. Still, the fact re mains that a considerable proportion of the owners of property in this world have insisted on making their own wills in the past, and that most probably a considerable proportion will insist on making their own wills in the future. The author has had these misguided individuals in view when writing the following essay, and, as a result of this, the form of the essay has, in several respects, departed more or less widely from what it would have been, had the discussion been intended exclusively for the reading of members of the legal profession. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.