few years afterwards Job Taylor and his wife
were lost in a ship wrecked at sea; they had
not much to leave behind them; but what little
there was, was made less by the struggles of
two sets of relatives, each striving to show
that one or other of the two hapless persons
might possibly have survived the other by a few
minutes. In eighteen hundred and nineteen
Major Colelough, his wife, and four children,
were drowned during a voyage from  Bristol
to Cork: the husband and wife had both made
wills; and there arose a pretty picking for the
lawyers in relation to survivorships and next of
kin, and trying to prove whether the husband
died first, the wife first, or both together. Two
brothers, James and Charles Cornet, left
Demerara on a certain day in eighteen hundred and
twenty-eight, in a vessel of which one was
master and the other mate; the vessel was
seen five days afterwards, but from that time
no news of her fate was ever received. Their
father died about a month after the vessel was
last seen. The ultimate disposal of his property
depended very much on the question whether
he survived his two sons, or they survived
him. Many curious arguments were used in
court. Two or three captains stated that from
August to January are hurricane months in
the West Indian seas, and that the ship was
very likely to have been wrecked quite early
in her voyage. There were, in addition,
certain relations interested in James's dying
before Charles; and they urged that, if the
ship was wrecked, Charles was likely to have
outlived by a little space his brother James,
because he was a stronger and more experienced
man. Alas for the "glorious uncertainty!"
One big-wig decided that the sons survived the
father, and another that the father survived the
sons. About the beginning of the present reign,
three persons, father, mother, and child, were
drowned on a voyage from Dublin to Quebec;
the husband had made a will, leaving all his
property to his wife; hence arose a contest
between the next of kin and the wife's relations,
each catching at any small fact that would
(theoretically) keep one poor soul alive a few
minutes longer than the other. About ten years
ago, a gentleman embarked with his wife and
three children for Australia: the ship was lost
soon after leaving England; the mate, the only
person who was saved among the whole of the
crew and passengers, deposed that he saw the
hapless husband and wife locked in each other's
arms at the moment when the waves closed
over them. There would seem to be no question
of survivorship here; yet a question really
arose; for there were two wills to be proved,
the terms of which would render the relatives
much interested in knowing whether husband
or wife did really survive the other by ever so
small a portion of time.

These entangled contests may rest in peace,
so far as the actual decisions are concerned.
And so may others of a somewhat analogous
nature. Such, for instance, as the case of an old
lady and her housekeeper at Portsmouth; they
were both murdered one night; the lady had
willed all her property to the housekeeper; and
then the lawyers fought over the question as to
which of the women died first. Or, the case of
a husband who promised, on his marriage-day,
to settle twelve hundred pounds on his wife "in
three or four years;" they were both drowned
about three years after the marriage; and it
was not until after a tough struggle in Chancery
that the husband's relatives conquered those of
the wife—albeit, the money had nearly vanished
in law expenses by that time. Or, the case of a
man, who gave a power of attorney to sell some
property; the property was sold on the eighth
of June; but the man was never seen after the
eighth of the preceding March, and was
supposed to have been wrecked at sea; hence
arose a question whether the man was, or was
not, dead on the day when the property was
sold—a question in which the buyer was directly
interested. The decisions in these particular
cases we pass over; but it is curious to see how
the law sometimes tries to guess at the nick of
time in which either one of two persons dies.
Sometimes the onus of proof rests on one of
the two sets of relations; if they cannot prove a
survivorship, the judgment is that the deaths
were simultaneous. Sometimes the law
philosophises on vitality and decay. The Code
Napoleon lays down the principle that of two
persons who perish by the same calamity, if they
were both children, the elder probably survived
the younger by a brief space, on account of
having superior vital energy; whereas, if they
were elderly people, the younger probably
survived the elder. The code also takes anatomy
and physiology into account, and discourses on
the probability whether a man would, or would
not, float longer alive than a woman, in the event
of shipwreck. The English law is less precise
in this matter; it is more prone to infer
simultaneous death, unless proof of survivorship be
actually brought forward. Counsel, of course,
do not fail to make the best of any straw to
catch at. According to the circumstances of the
case, they argue that a man, being usually
stronger than a woman, probably survives her a
little, in a case of simultaneous drowning; that,
irrespective of comparative strength, her greater
terror and timidity would incapacitate her from
making exertions which would be possible to
him; that a seafaring man has a chance of
surviving a landsman, on account of his
experience in salt-water matters; that where there
is no evidence to the contrary, a child may be
presumed to have outlived his father; that a
man in good health would survive one in ill
health; and so forth.

The nick of time is not less an important
matter in reference to single deaths, under
various circumstances. People are often very
much interested in knowing whether a certain
person is dead or not. Unless under specified
circumstances, the law refuses to kill a man;
that is, a man known to have been alive
at a certain date is presumed to continue to
live, unless and until proof to the contrary is
adduced. But there are certain cases in which
the application of this rule would involve