LAST WILLS AND TESTAMENTS. 525 



ment in favor of my mother, who is to take everything I possess ; in 



case of her death, then my sister inherits all my effects. L. Simon 



and Arthur Sewell I appoint executors. 



H. J. Montague." 



On the back of this scrap, also in pencil, occurs : 



" Witnessed by T. R. Edwaeds, 



Louis M. Simon." 



In cases of contracts, lead-pencil agreements have repeatedly been 

 held sufficient (Merrit vs. Clason, 12 Johns., 102 ; Clason vs. Bailey, 

 14 id., 484 ; Brown vs. Butchers' and Drovers' Bank, 6 Hill, 443), 

 and the same reasoning applicable to such applies also to testaments. 

 It is certainly to be hoped that the tendency of the decisions in this 

 respect will change. The door for the admission of fraud is here 

 opened too wide. To erase and rewrite in the body of the will is much 

 too easily and cleverly accomplished, and this temptation should be 

 removed by statutory enactment or judicial interpretation. 



A mark or cross has been held a good subscription. Some years 

 ago Moses W. Jackson left a will signed 



his 



Moses W. X Jackson. 



mark. 



The surrogate adjudged this sufficiently subscribed ; the Supreme 

 Court upheld the surrogate, and the Court of Appeals sustained the 

 Supreme Court, holding that it was not even necessary that the words 

 " Moses W. Jackson, his mark " should have been written before he 

 made the X . The law would undoubtedly admit the cross if the 

 words were entirely wanting, under proper evidence (Jackson vs. 

 Jackson, 39 IT. S., 153). If the testator requests a third person to 

 subscribe the will for him, and it be done in the presence of the wit- 

 nesses, it comes within the statute (Campbell vs. Logan, 2 Brad., 90 ; 

 Van Hanswyck vs. Wiesl, 44 Barb., 494). But such third person 

 must himself also sign as a witness. 



2. Such subscription shall be made by the testator in the presence 

 of each of the attesting witnesses, or shall be acknowledged by him 

 to have been so made to each of the attesting witnesses. 



On December 1, 1865, William Baskin made a last will, and five 

 weeks afterward died at the age of eighty-nine years. Thirteen years 

 before he had made a previous will, which still continued in existence. 

 At his death the will of 1865 was offered for probate to the Surrogate 

 of Yates County, New York, but its admission was contested. The 

 evidence showed that the last will was drawn by one Henry Smith on 

 the morning of December 1, 1865, at the bedside of the deceased ; 

 that the whole was read over to him, clause by clause, and that Mr. 

 Baskin at the completion of the reading sat up on the side of the bed 

 and wrote his name at the foot of the will without assistance and 



