we find this letter so often opposite these citations means that our Supreme Court ever since the rendition of the Richards decision has been struggling frantically to explain what in thunder it meant by it.

Judge Lewis wrote the opinion of the court. Judges Lumpkin, Little, Fish and Cobb looked wise, sawed wood, concurred, and said as little as possible; but Judge Simmons, the revered and beloved, then Chief Justice, stepped to the front with his nostrils swelling with the scent of battle, pulled off his coat and defied them all. It didn't make the slightest difference to him that they were five to one against him. He filed his dissenting opinion, covering twenty-four pages and citing, by actual count, two hundred and forty eight authorities. This dissenting opinion, in my judgment, will go down in the legal history of the State as one of the greatest arguments we have ever had on the subject of the right of equity to decree a sale of equitable and legal estates of minors. For elaborateness and wonderful skill of argument and thoroughness of research it is probably among those very few decisions which are in the same class with Judge Bleckley's famous opinion on "Amendments" in the Ellison case.

In this Richards case the trustee held the property for the benefit of a woman and her minor children during the mother's lifetime, and the case turned on the question whether such trustee, having no title to the legal fee in remainder which belonged to the children, could obtain from a court of equity a sale of the entire property including the legal as well as the equitable estate. Judge Lewis held that it could, Judge Simmons that it could not. The circumstances would seem to indicate that the creator of the trust really had in mind extending the trust estate to the children also, so as to embrace the remainder, but he failed to use words which were legally sufficient to accomplish his purpose. The result was all this trouble. Five words added to the instrument would have made it absolutely clear, and this fearful piece of litigation would never have bedeviled the life out of our court of last resort.

The hand of the unskillful draftsman is also apparent in

that army of cases turning on powers of sale, involving the questions whether the trusts were executed, and whether such powers were over the life interest only or extended to the fee. In almost all these cases, except perhaps those involving trusts executed by the married woman's act of 1866, the passage of which attorneys drawing wills before that date of course could not anticipate, the difficulties would have been avoided had the draftsman been possessed of requisite knowledge of his subject and exercised a proper degree of care.

So, in those cases of automatically executed trusts, where property which the testator supposes is properly protected from the unwisdom of his loved ones and saved for their benefit after his death, is by the court immediately turned over to them in fee, to be wasted or spent at will, simply because the trust was not saved by the trustee being given "something to do" under the terms of the statute, or there was not a sufficient limitation over to support the trust.

To pursue these and kindred subjects in detail would expand this paper to a volume and require me to learn a great deal more will-law than I will probably ever know. I shall, therefore, leave it with you, with the hope that something I may have said may some time illuminate the stony path of some would-be will-drawer and enable him to steer his client's ship straight down the middle of the high road without having its tire punctured on some ill-constructed trust, or its carbureter set to leaking by some pet but too-remote remainder.

MY BODY AND I.

A MONOLOGUE BY

JOEL BRANHAM,

OF ROME.

"In the longest day we can not enumerate the things we remember, for the past is marching by us like a gay procession in review, playing pipes and bearing banners, calling out to us forgotten trifles and the dear old stupid words that remain in memory longer than the churchyard dead."

Tom, old fellow, I love you. We have been partners a long time, eighty-one years. Most of the time you have dealt fairly with me. You have been active and industrious, but recently you have grown lax in the business. You are shifting your part of the work on me. You are demanding too much of my time, you should carry your part of the burden, like an honest partner, ever mindful of the rights of your associates. I think we should dissolve our partnership. Come now, let us talk about it.

All right, Joe.

Oh, Tom! Call me by that name always, no other living voice speaks it. You were quite young when our partnership began, it was in the dawn. I can see you now as you came with eyes wide open, flung from "Out of the Everywhere into the Here," gazing in wonder on the world in which we had just begun business. You had no knowledge or experience. The old firm greeted you with great affection. They gazed with loving tenderness into your beautiful eyes, caressed your cheek and pink toes, called you "tootsie, wootsie," and other endearing names. They introduced you with inexpressible delight to all their customers and friends. Some of them said you were like the senior member, and some said you favored the junior member of the old firm. You were the only one, a most wonderful little gentleman. Do you remember when

you first spoke to me about our partnership? What little capital we had when we began business and how inexperienced we were? We had to borrow our capital from the old firm. How willingly they lent it to us and on such favorable terms, even after we were able to go alone. In the early stages of our business so many disasters befell you, you were disabled so often, that I was tempted to withdraw from the firm. You complained, quit work and laid down, with colds, colic, whooping cough, measles, mumps and fevers. The business suffered; we lost a great deal of time. Only the intercession of the old firm kept me from leaving you. When I threatened to withdraw they expostulated, wept and prayed until I had to yield to them and allow you to have your own way. Then, you consumed too much of your time in sleep. It was not possible to make you rise early. I indulged you so that when, to perfect our business education it became necessary for us to enter school, you didn't want to go. You hated school and the school room, and you detested "Old Books" and his rod. You went reluctantly and rejoiced when recess came and the school closed for the day. You counted the weeks and the days when the term should end and vacation begin. Do you remember the old school house?

It stood on a hill at the edge of the woods near the town. It was a two-story wooden building about twenty by forty feet, heated with stoves in the middle of the rooms. The boys sat on benches ranged along the walls, with long pine tables in front of them. The old building has been torn down and converted into a negro cabin-that is all that remains of its wreck.

Can you name our teachers? I can never forget them. When there was only one teacher he taught all the boys from their A, B, C's to Greek, Latin and higher mathematics. Our teachers were: John Hillyer, Merriman and Packard, William C. Wilkes, Isham Brooks, Joel Barnett, Wilson and Branham.

What a large man Mr. Hillyer was! He was over six feet high. He had a fine mechanical genius and taught you about all you know even now about steam engines. You were a delicate boy until you were twelve years old, so much so that

you could not play with the other boys in their rough games. You generally sat at recess with Mr. Hillyer and listened to his instructions. He told you that the time would come when music would be made for the country by steam, and so it has in the calliope.

You know Merriman and Packard were Yankees from some one of the New England States. Merriman taught the larger boys in the second story of the school house, and Packard the beginners and smaller ones in the lower room. Packard was very fond of flowers. He laid off the front yard of the school lot into a flower garden and had the boys bring flowers from their homes and soon made a beautiful flower garden which fell into ruin by neglect soon after he quit teaching.

Mr. Wilkes was our most efficient teacher. You learned about all you know and your school days ended under his instruction. He afterwards became President of Brenau College at Gainesville, and you had the honor of making a commencement address there for him. He played the accordeon. He turned in his feet, for he was pigeon-toed, and patted time as he played. He married the sister of Dr. Spalding late in life. You loved him for he was a kind and most excellent gentleman.

Isham Brooks was a Scotchman. He taught only a short while.

Joel Barnett was of small stature, but he was plucky. He had no assistant. The large boys studied alone in the lower room. A grown young man persisted in visiting them in school hours. Mr. Barnett ordered him off. He declined to go and Mr. Barnett put him out of the room and began to thrash him with a stout hickory. The other boys rushed out. Mr. Barnett thought they were attacking him, and he fought them all single-handed with his fists until he was thrown to the ground. The boys said they only intended to part him and the intruder, and when Mr. Barnett was convinced of it they all made friends and shook hands over it. The intruding boy never came again to the school house.

On one occasion the boys turned Mr. Barnett out, barred the doors and windows, and fought him with sticks, slates, and