day. The palsy felt in New Orleans will be paralysis
at New York. Slavery requires no sword to
kill it. It is fast passing away; and it has been
proved unprofitable. If the slavers could be
really kept from perpetually landing fresh negroes
in New Orleans, the existing race might work
its younger members free after a given time,
and the older slaves might die off by degrees,
harmless and contented with the good time
coming for their children.

A WILL OF HIS OWN.

HE has been dead many years. While upon
earth, and residing in this pleasant land of England,
he took it into his head, as many have
done before, but perhaps in a different sense,
to have a will of his own. And he had it—
unfortunately for others.

He was what the world calls pretty well to do,
and had something to leave. He thought it was
very hard to leave it, and to be bowled out so
soon; but he and his relations differed in that
respect; and, as he had had a pretty good
innings and had made a respectable score, they
rather thought that it was time he was out;
whether bowled, or stumped, or caught out, they
were not particular.

Well, he had something to leave, and, however
loth to leave it, he had long thought it
proper and respectable to make a will; and after
going through all the gradations of intending,
and promising, and resolving, and determining
to do the thing, and doing it and undoing it,
and half doing it, at last, when there was hardly
time to do it at all, he actually did do it—
unfortunately, let it be said again, for those who
might have profited and thanked him if he had
only done it sensibly, as such and all other
matters of business of importance should be done.

He thought while he was in health and spirits
that there was plenty of time; and even when
at times a little out of sorts, he didn't like the
idea of making a confidant of an attorney—a
race he had always detested the very name of—
and so he put the thing off. No such confidence
was needed. He need not have told the attorney
anything about his property or affairs, but
might have told him what he wanted done, and
have left him to do it—just as he might have
ordered his tailor to make a coat of any given
pattern, or any peculiar colour. He couldn't
make a coat he knew; but he took it into his
head that he could make a will.

There was no time to lose; little time for
thought, none for revision. The will was written,
signed, and sealed. Even then he hardly liked
to let the people about him know what he was
doing: not that he was exactly ashamed or
afraid; but he didn't like to do it, and didn't like
people to know that he was doing it, so he did it
half upon the sly, and, having done it, felt as if he
had done a foolish thing. Then he thought he
had not done it quite as he ought to have done,
and tried to undo it; made some alterations and
additions, added codicils, then revoked them;
and in the midst of the hurly-burly—he died.

The first appearance of this will of his own
was in that dark and dreary region known as
Doctors' Commons. Why so called the writer
knows not—whether in connexion with the
doctors whose patients wander there, or the
short commons the suitors are supposed to get
in the judicial way in that locality. There, his
unfortunate will appeared, and scurvily it fared.

The law, it seemed, required two witnesses,
not only to the will, but to every alteration of
it. The witnesses must also be present when
the will is signed, and must attest the will in a
certain form. In every one of these particulars
grave doubts arose—interminable allegations and
interrogations were drawn, written out, filed,
copied, paid for—everything but read. Then
came long and prosy speeches, then a sleepy
judgment, wherein the old gentleman on the
bench proclaimed that he wondered how any
testator in his senses could so have confused
all rules and forms so necessary to be observed
in making wills—rules established for the protection
of the public, and so forth, and that
on almost every point doubt and difficulty had
arisen. As to the absurdities glaring forth out
of the wills and codicils themselves he should
not express any opinion, but must leave other
tribunals to settle those points as they best could.
His only duty was to declare which paper could
be admitted to probate, and which not, and which
alterations could be adopted and which rejected.
This he proceeded to do, declaring null, all the
testator's favourite provisions, and establishing
all that he had intended to revoke. Then came the
decision as to costs, which were to come out of
the estate, with another complaint from the old
gentleman on the bench, who said that if testators
would occasion such confusion by the
absurd parsimony of not having the benefit of
professional advice, or by still more absurdly
postponing such serious business until it was
too late, what could the court do but saddle
the estate with all the costs?

Like other foolish gentlemen, he had sought
to what is called "tie up" his property; which
means that, having had his full enjoyment of it,
he was determined no one else should have it so
long as he could keep them out of it; and he
gave life interests, and interests to children's children,
and fixed distant periods for their coming
into possession. He had also determined, if possible,
to give chance no chance, and he attempted
to provide for every event in every family that
should succeed to any of his property.

But, besides all this, when he had that will
of his own, he must needs do something in
the cheap charitable line. He must make
atonement, as it were, for what he would not
give when it reduced his store, to give to
charity what reduced the store of others. He
must found schools, and build churches, and
enrich hospitals, or aid in doing so; and he fell
deeply into the snare of mortmain acts and
superstitious uses.

The next appearance of this unfortunate will
of his own was in the Court of Chancery. Bills,
answers, pleas, demurrers, and exceptions; then