This particular formality is perhaps the most important of all, as matters stand. An illustration will presently be given to bring this fact out more clearly. Some effort will also be made to exhibit the possibilities of injustice in connection with the execution of a will. These “possibilities” have become “certainties” too often in the past. Anomalies of the law can be found in hundreds of will cases, but the writer is now chiefly concerned with exposing flagrant examples of injustice arising out of a too strict regard for formality as opposed to _intention_. Intention, too, is of great legal importance in many directions, notably in crime, and, indeed, in the construction of wills as well, but it is of little account if it is not supported by the usual formalities of execution. Such matters come within the jurisdiction of the Probate Court, the Divorce Court transformed for the occasion. (The chameleonic complexion of the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division of the High Court of Justice, has already been touched upon.) The primary object at present is to show, quite simply, the working of the Statute of Wills, which came into operation January 1, 1838. Towards the end of the month of March, not many years ago, _A_, the son of _B_, was asked by _B_, his mother, to instruct a solicitor to draft a will, leaving him, the son, all the real and personal property of which she, the mother, died possessed, or which might fall in to the credit of her estate. She told _A_--her only child (the offspring of her first marriage)--that she had already provided for her second husband, _C_, during the years of her married life. The son duly carried out his mother’s request, though he had little suspicion that her death was at hand. Nor had she, in spite of the fact that she was supposed to be suffering from influenza, and had a nurse in attendance at the time. In due course, the draft will was left at the house by the solicitor. _A_ gave the matter no more attention, and for several days received favourable reports of his mother’s illness, both from her medical attendant, and from the trained nurse. On April 1st, an ominous date, he called at _B’s_ house but could not see her. The nurse, however, informed him that it was likely to be a long though not a dangerous illness. This was at five o’clock in the afternoon. At or about three o’clock the next morning, _B’s_ manservant arrived at _A’s_ chambers with a summons for him to go to his mother at once, as she was _in extremis_. _A_ hastened to dress, and, after a delay in finding a cab--for the servant had come on foot through _C’s_ intervention, _though the distance was four miles_--he hurried to his mother’s bedside. On arriving there, he found two nurses and a doctor present. _A_ asked whether the will had been executed, and his mother, who overheard the question, intimated that it was in a chest of drawers. _B_ was then given the will; she struggled to a sitting