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Show SETTLED. Salt Lake City, Oct. 17,1879. Editors Herald: It is presumable that everybody, except a few dissatisfied and scheming people, was heartiiy glad when it wag announced that the great B. Y. will Buit and both the tuiia were arranged by compromise and settled by decree of court. Not that compromisa is necessarily equitable, often far from it. But it is, notwithstanding, frequently fre-quently the shortest, lea;t expensive, and moat gener&l:y satisfactory and agreeable way out ot a contest, especially es-pecially a content litigant. Forlitiga lion is not a pleasant business. It is tedious, irritating and costly, olten vexatious to a high degree. Though decisive in tbe end, it is hardly ever as mutually satisfactory as arbitration or even as compromise. In a criminal crimi-nal case compromise ia inadmissible, but in a civil suit it ia otherwise. other-wise. If the great euit bad not been settled by compromise, but bad been pushed through tbe courts to me -bitter end, it might have been a decade in litigation, and in all probability it wou.d have been very vexatious litigation. It might: have caused a great deal of impiaa-able impiaa-able enmity amung parties concerned, and a great many parties were concerned con-cerned in it, directly or indirectly. It would have dragged out and spread open to tue public gaze many matters of a btriclly private nature, and with which tbe public had no manner of business, nor any sort of legitimate concern. It would have caused many malicious and exaggerated statements which wou'd have contributed nothing to the public morality. Although the business is effectually settled, yet it induces a good many sober reflections. Tbe suit shows that after a man, a well-to-do man, is dead, and he has left an equitable and care fully constructed will,hi property may be dragged into court and with indecent baste thrust into unfriendly and possibly pos-sibly not overscrupulous bands, and thereby hia will may be virtually and quickly nullified, to a great extent and for years, until a large part ot the property is dissipated in court and counsel fees, and perhaps in less legitimate wayB. If a man dies, as all men do, what good reason is there that halt his means should be confiscated confis-cated for court proceedings? Such being generally the liability and not infrequently the probability as to his property, a man won't want to die if he can help it. But, as die he must sometime, he will want to put oft the evil day as long aa possible, to "the last syllable of recorded time" if he can. Then he may wish be had no property to leava for courts and lawyers to lock up and gobble up at tbeir pleasure. For though theoretically theoreti-cally tbe couita are supposed to be peculiarly tbe protectors of heirs and legatees, yet practically it is likely that the feea will be more faithfully looked after than tbe interests of heirs or legatees. He may adopt the policy of dividing his property among hia heirs or others and of conveying it to them before bis death, in preference to leaving it to be done after, and thus cheat the courts and lawyers out of their pickings pick-ings and etealiDgs. But this would not always be satisfactory, as it is possible to have thankless children or thankless heirs or legatees of some kind, who, after obtaining his property prop-erty might buow tbeir teeth, the serpent ser-pent teeth of base ingratitude. The best and most generally eflectual and satisfactory way probably would be to incorporate in the will a nrovision. prohibitive and permitive, forbidding litigation in pushiog any alleged claim of heirs or legatees under the will, but' providing that all Huch claims should be settled by friendly arbitration, ar-bitration, fully and finally, and in no other manner whatever. No doubt occupants of the bench and gentleman gentle-man of tbe bar, as well ts some other gentlemen expectant or bopelul, would lift their hands in official or professional horror at such methods. But never mind, all men have a natural and legal right to secure their property from being tied up and swallowed up, after their death, in court and cognate fees, so far as is practicable, and 1 would advise all will-makers to do so to tbe furthest possible extent, so that their property may go to those who have tbe clearest right to it in genuine justice, and that without unnecessary and vexatious delay, Hugo. |