MORTMAIN.
(TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SrscrATOR.") SIR,—I am sure you will excuse my calling attention to a serious error in the article of your last number headed, "The Hall Will Case." The writer states in broad language that "a man must by law continue to live for six months after he has made a bequest to a religious or charitable object, or his bequest is void." And later on, he seems to connect this proposition with the "Statute of Mortmain." I have had a large experience in questions affecting Charities, and am not only wholly unaware of the existence of any such principle of law, but am perfectly sure that it does not exist.
Your contributor will find, on referring to the proper source of inquiry, that the restriction which was probably in his mind when he penned his article has reference to real estate, or property partaking of the nature of real estate, by what is popularly (though inaccurately) described as the Statute of Mortmain,— viz., 9 George II., c. 36. Property of this nature cannot be legally dedicated to charitable uses by will at all, but must be made over by deed executed and enrolled twelve months before the donor's death.
But a testator may leave the whole of his personal estate in charity, without any reference whatever to the period which may elapse between the date of his will and his death. On public ground', the error should be corrected.—I am, Sir, &c.,
NATHANIEL BRIDGES.
22 Red Lion ,pan, W.C., January 2.
[Our correspondent is quite right, but the following sentences from the "Political Cyclopmelia," in an article attributed to the late Lord Denman, will show that the Judges have somewhat widened the law :—" The judicial interpretation of this Act, called the Mortmain Act, has prevented a large amount of property from being given to charitable uses. A bequest of money for charit- able purposes, to arise from the sale of land, is void ; or of money due on mortgages ; or of money to pay off the mortgage on a .chapel; or of money to build a chapel, unless some land already in mortmain is distinctly pointed out by the terms of the bequest ; or of mortgages both in fee and for years ; or of money to be laid out on mortgage security."—En. Spectator.]
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