Curious Wills

Where there is a will, there is a won't.

TASK 1. Read the text.

When Margaret Montgomery of Chicago died in 1959, she left her five cats and a $15,000 trust fund for their care to a former employee, William Fields. The will stipulated that Fields was to use the trust income solely for the cats' care and feeding, including such delicacies as pot roast meat. If, however, he outlived all the cats, Fields would inherit the trust principal. Nine years later the last cat, Fat Nose, died at 20, and Fields, 79, was $15,000 richer.

Probably the largest single group of pets to be named specifically in a will were the 150 or so dogs given $4,3 million by Eleanor Ritchey, an oil company heiress who died in 1968. The dogs were mostly strays she had collected at her 180-acre ranch in Deerfield Beach, Florida. When the last dog, Musketeer, died in June 1984, the entire estate - by then grown to nearly $12 million - went under the will to the Auburn University School of Veterinary Medicine to support research on dog diseases.

Charles Vance Millar, a Canadian lawyer and financier who died a bachelor in 1926, bequeathed the bulk of his fortune to whichever Toronto women gave birth to the largest number of children in the 10 years after his death. Four women eventually tied in the "stork derby" that followed the publication of his will. Each had 9 children, and they shared between them $750,000. A fifth woman who had 10 children was ruled out because 5 were illegitimate.

One of the world's shortest wills was left by an Englishman named Dickens. Contested in 1906 but upheld by the courts, it read simply: "All for mother".

A 19th-century London tavernkeeper left his property to his wife - on the condition that every year, on the anniversary of his death, she would walk barefoot to the local market, hold up a lighted candle, and confess aloud how she had nagged him. The theme of the confession was that if her tongue had been shorter, her husband's days would have been longer. If she failed to keep the appointment, she was to receive no more than £20 a year, just enough to live on. Whether the wife decided to take the bigger bequest or spare herself humiliation is not known.

TASK 2. Work in pairs. Examine the wills. You are a lawyer of one these five -------- clients. Discuss with your client the terms of the will.

7. The Man They Couldn't Hang

TASK 1. Complete the text with the English equivalents of the following Russian words.

- просто;

- осужденный, приговоренный;

- пережил;

- попытки;

- приговор,приговаривать;

- заменялся;

- пожизненное заключение;

- признан виновным;

- казнить;

- виселица;

- открываться;

- хотя;

- тюрьма;

- освобожденный;

- причина.

It is no Ц) legend that if а Ш man 0} three £4} to hang him, his (5) was automatically £6) to Q. In 1885 John Lee, a 19-year-old footman was (8) of murdering his employer. (2) to death, Lee then (3J three (4) by a hangman John Perry, to (9J him at Exeter Gaol in Devon, England.

The wooden {Щ had warped in the rain, and three times the trapdoor refused to Щ) when Lee was placed on it - Щ) it worked perfectly when he was moved down to the ground. So Lee was (5J to (7) and spent 22 years in U2J. Ш) m 1907, he emigrated to the United States, married there, and died of natural (15) in 1933 at the age of 67.

8. Napoleon's Law

TASK 1. Complete the following text with the words from the box.

force; ordinary; civil; affected; adopted;

legal; dominated; studied; equals; drafted; emperor.

The laws of much of continental Europe (particularly France), of Quebec in Canada, and of much of Latin America - along with the (a) laws of Louisiana - owe their modern form largely to the work of a man who never even (b) law. Napoleon Bonaparte, the Corsican soldier who became (c) of France after the French Revolution, established in 1800 five commissions to refine and organise the disparate (d) systems of France. The result, enacted in 1804, was the Napoleon's Code.

Some of its original 2,281 articles were (e) by Napoleon himself, and all were (f) by his thinking, even though he was completely self-taught in legal matters. The code was a triumphant attempt to create a legal system that treated all citizens as (g) without regard to their rank or previous privileges. It was also so clearly written that it could be read and understood by (h) people at a time when only Latin scholars could make sense of the earlier laws handed down since Roman times. The code was (i) intact in most of the areas of Europe that Napoleon 0} and spread from there across the Atlantic, taking root particularly in French-speaking American communities. Many of its principles are still in (k) today.

TASK 2. Choose one of the topics and prepare a talk.

1. The main points of Napoleon's biography.

2. The great victories of Napoleon Bonaparte.

3. One hundred days of Napoleon Bonaparte.

4. Great emperor and romantic lover.

5. The legal system of France at the time of Napoleon.

6. The leaders of the French Revolution.

7. World literature about the French Revolution.

8."... prince and butcher"- Nostradamus's prophetic verse about Napoleon.