AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
331 
in equal parts to the children if living, and 
the children of such as may be dead take the 
portion which would have belonged to the 
parent. 
2. If there be no children nor any legal 
representatives of them the widow takes 
half, and the other half is distributed among 
the next of kin as mentioned below. 
3. If there be no descendant, parent, broth¬ 
er or sister, nephew or niece, the widow 
takes the whole ; but if there be a brother or 
sister, nephew or neice, the widow takes 
one-half and takes out of the other half to the 
amount of two thousand dollars, and the res¬ 
idue (if any) is then distributed to the broth¬ 
ers and sisters and their representatives 
1. If there be no widow the whole goes to 
the children and their legal representatives. 
5. If there be no widow and no children, 
and no representatives of a child, then the 
whole is distributed to the next of kin in 
equal degree to the deceased and their legal 
representatives. 
6. If there be a widow, but no children or 
representatives of them, and no father, the 
widow takes one-half, the mother one-quar¬ 
ter, and the brothers and sisters, or their 
representatives, one-quarter. 
7. If there be a widow, and a father, but 
no child or descendant, the widow takes 
half, and the father half; but if there be no 
widow, the father takes the whole. 
8. If the intestate leave a mother, and no 
descendant, father, brother, sister, or repre¬ 
sentative of a brother or sister, the widow 
takes half and the mother half, but if there 
be no widow the mother takes the whole. 
9. The property of an intestate who is il¬ 
legitimate, if he have no descendant, or wid¬ 
ow, goes to the mother and her relatives. 
10. Advancements of real or personal 
property made to a child before the death of 
the intestate, are to be taken into the account 
so as to make the portions of the children 
equal. 
The foregoing aie the provisions of our 
laws in the main, omitting some minutiae 
which are not of general interest. Most of 
our readers can now see how their property 
will be disposed of if they neglect to dispose 
of it themselves. If they do not like the pro¬ 
visions, they should lose no time in making 
their wills ; there are plenty of legal gentle¬ 
men who, for a fee of five or ten dollars, will 
help them to dispose of their estates precise¬ 
ly as they would wish. 
[Any person can draw up their own Will, 
and sign it in the presence of three persons, 
who must subscribe as witnesses. There are 
blank forms for sale at most bookstores at a 
cost of three to six cents, and as far as mak¬ 
ing out these documents is concerned “ every 
man can be his own lawyer.”] 
How to Choose a Husband. —Never 
marry a man till you have seen him eat. 
Let the candidate for your hand pass through 
the ordeal of eating soft boiled eggs. If he 
can do it and leave the table-spread, the nap¬ 
kin, and his shirt unspotted—take him. 
Try him next witl^ a spare-rid. If he ac¬ 
complishes this feat without putting out one 
of his own eyes, or pitching the bones into 
your lap, name the wedding-day at once ; he 
will do to tie to. 
Pretty Conceit. —The Portland Trans¬ 
cript relates the following: “One of our 
correspondents has a bright little girl just 
learning to talk, who is destined to be a 
poetess. Some of her pretty sayings we 
have already chronicled. Here is the last. 
A bob-o-link came and sang on a tree near 
the window. She was much delighted, and 
asked—‘What makes he sing so sweet, 
mother? Do he eat flowers V' 
“A little humor now and then, 
Is relished by the best of men.” 
S’CAT AGAIN. 
We stated a long time ago, that there 
would be trouble some moonlight night 
among the cats that congregate on the long 
shed in the rear of our dwelling. We gave 
notice that we had wasted more wood on 
them than we could spare—that we had used 
up all the brickbats that we could lay our 
hands on—that we had thrown away some¬ 
thing less than a tun of coal—and had 
smashed a window on the opposite block. 
All this proving of no avail, we said we had 
got a double-barreled gun, and percussion 
caps, and powder and shot; and some morn¬ 
ing after a moonlight night, somebody’s cat 
wouldn’t i ome home to breakfast, or if it did 
it would be troubled with the dumps. We 
gave fair notice of our grievances, and 
what we intended to do about them. 
Well, the moon came up on Monday night, 
with her great, round face, and went walk¬ 
ing up the sky with a queenly step, throwing 
her light, like a mantle of britghtness, over 
the whole earth! We love the calm of a 
moonlight night, in the still Spring time, and 
the cats of our part of the town love it too; 
for they come from every quarter—from the 
sheds around the National Garden—from the 
kitchens and the stables—creeping stealthily 
and softly along the tops of the fences, and 
along the sheds, and clambring up the boards 
that lean up against the out-buidings they 
set themselves down, more or less of them 
in their old trysting place—right opposite 
our chamber window. To all this we had, in 
the abstract, no objection. If a cat wishes 
to take a quiet walk by moonlight—if he 
chooses to go out for his pleasure or his 
profit, it is no particular business of ours, 
and we havn’t a word to say. Cats have 
rights, and we have no disposition to inter¬ 
fere with them. But they must keep the 
peace. They must get up no disorderly 
meetings, no unlawful assemblies. If they 
choose to hold a convention, they can do it 
for all us—but they must go about it decent¬ 
ly and in order. They must talk matters 
over calmly ; there must be no rioting, no 
fighting. They must refrain from the use 
of profane language—they musn’t swear.— 
There’s law against all this, and we warned 
them long ago that we would stand no such 
nonsense. We said we’d let drive among 
them with a double-barreled gun loaded with 
powder and duck-shot, and we meant it. 
But those cats didn’t believe a word we said. 
They didn’t believe we had any powder or 
shot; they didn’t believe we had any gun, or 
knew how to use it if we had. And one 
great Maltese (with eyes like tea plates and 
a tail like a Bologna sausage), grinned and 
sputtered, and spit in derision and defiance 
at our threats. “ Very well,” said we, “ very 
well, Mr. Tom Cat, very well indeed? On 
your head be it, Mr. Tom Cat. Try it on, 
Mr. Thomas Cat, and see who will get the 
worst of it.” 
We said the moon came up on Monday 
night with her great round face ; and all the 
little stars hid themselves as if ashamed of 
their twinkle to the splendor of her superior 
brightness. We retired, after the baby had 
been put asleep in his crib, and the rumble 
of the carriages and carts had ceased in the 
streets, and the scream of the 10 o’clock 
train had died away into silence, with a quiet 
conseience, and in confidence that we should 
find that repose to which one who has 
wronged no man during the day is justly en¬ 
titled. 
It may have been II o’clock, possibly 
midnight, when we were awakened from a 
pleasant slumber by a babel of unearthly 
sounds in the rear of our chamber. We 
knew what those sounds meant—they had 
cost us fuel enough to have lasted us a week. 
We raised the window, and there, as of old, 
right opposite us, on the north end of that 
long shed, was an assemblage of all the cats 
in our part of the town. 
We won't be precise as to numbers, but it 
is our honest belief that there were less than 
300 of them ; and one among them all was 
silent, we didn’t succeed in discovering 
which it was. There was that same old 
Maltese, with his great saucer eyes and 
sausage tail; and over against him sat a 
monstrous brindle ; and off at his right was 
an old spotted ratter; and on his left was 
one, black as a wolfs mouth, all but his eyes 
which glared with a sulphurous and lurid 
brightness; and dotted all around, over a 
space of thirty feet square, were dozens 
of all sizes and colors—and such growling 
and spitting, and shrieking and swearing, nev¬ 
er before broke, with hideous discord, the 
silence of midnight! 
We loaded our double-barreled gun, by 
candle-light, we put plenty of powder and a 
handful of shot into each barrel. We ad¬ 
justed the caps carefully, and stepped out of 
the window upon the narrow roof upon 
which it opens. We were then just eighty 
rods from the cat convention, and we ad¬ 
dressed ourself to the chairman, (the old 
Maltese) in a distinct and audible voice, and 
cried “S’cat?” He didn’t recognise our right 
to the floor, but went right on with the busi¬ 
ness of the meeting. “S’cat!” cried we 
again, more emphatically than before, but 
were answered by an extra shriek from the 
chairman, and a fiercer scream from the 
whole assembly. “S’cat once ?” cried we 
again, as we brought our gun to a present. 
“S’cat twice ?” and we aimed straight at the 
chairman, and covering half a dozen others 
in the range. “ S’cat three times ?” and we 
let drive. Bang! went the right hand barrel 
—and bang! went the left hand barrel. 
Such scampering, such leaping off of the 
shed, such running away over the eaves of 
the out-buildings, over the tops of wood 
sheds, w r as never seen before. The echoes 
of the firing had hardly died away when the 
whole assemblage was broken up and dis¬ 
persed. 
“ Thomas,” said we the next morning, to the 
boy who does chores for us, “ There seems 
to be a cat asleep out on that shed—go up 
and scare it away.” Thomas clambered up 
on the shed and went up to where the cat 
lay, and lifting it up by the tail, halloed back 
to us, “ This cat can’t be waked up ; it can’t 
be scared away—it’s dead !” After exam¬ 
ining it a moment, “ somebody has been a 
shootin’ of it!” said he, as he tossed it down 
into the yard. “ You don’t say so,” said we. 
That cat was the old Maltese, the chairman 
of that convention—but he won’t preside 
over another very soon. We don’t know 
where he boarded, or who claimed title to 
him What we do know is, that it cost a 
quarter to have him buried or thrown into 
the river; and if any body owned him, all 
we ask is, that he should pay us back our 
quarter, and the difference between his val¬ 
ue and that of the powder and shot expended 
on him. We'll throw in the vexation of 
being broke of our rest, and the wickedness 
of using certain expletives—under the ex¬ 
citement of the occasion—which are not to 
be found in any of the good books of the 
day. —Albany Register. 
“ You ask and you receive not, because 
you ask a-miss ,” said a young lady to an 
old gentleman who had popped the question 
to her. 
