He desired his executors to consign his “carcase” to any place they pleased, and if the parish priest should claim a burial fee, they were to “let the puppy have it.”
In the window at the west end of the nave at St. Mary’s, Lambeth, in London, may be seen a singular group representing a pedler with a pack on his back followed by a dog. Its age is not known, but it was there at the end of the sixteenth century. It is connected with a piece of land called Pedler’s Acre, anciently known as Church Hopys, which is entered in the parish register as bequeathed by a person unknown. A tradition preserved in the locality states that this isthmus was given to the parish to hold as long as the representation of himself and his dog was preserved in the church window.
A resident of an Eastern State, who died recently, reflects in his will that he was shunned by his relatives, “who cannot, now that I am dying, do too much for my comfort.” But the testator, one Dr. Wagner, takes on these relations a ghastly revenge. To his brother, Napoleon Bonaparte, he bequeathed his left arm and hand; to another brother, George Washington, his right arm and hand; and to others his legs, nose, ears, etc. Further, the testator leaves a thousand dollars for the dismembering of his body.
An eccentric testator, having been told that so long as the proper formalities required by the law of wills were complied with it was immaterial whether the said will were written on paper, parchment, canvas, or wood, elected to write his on his door. The executors had therefore no choice but to have the door unscrewed from its hinges and carried into court for probate before it could be administered. The author has not been able to locate the court in which this rather weighty will was probated, but its existence is well authenticated.
A strange document was recently filed as a will in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Robert J. McElroy, after being fatally injured by a freight train, scribbled on a card torn from a freight car: “Mary, all that is mine is thine.” The will left an estate of $5200 to his wife. After writing the will, McElroy signed the letter “R,” but was unable to finish, and other trainmen completed the signature. McElroy died on June 12, 1910.