Excerpt from Decedent Estate Law of the State of New York: Chapter Thirteen of the Consolidated Laws (Became a Law February 17, 1909; Chapter 18, Laws of 1909); Together With All Amendments In the pages of this work concerned with the scheme of a will, the author has preferred to state general principles, rather than to pre sent precedents of wills. It is conceived that the intelligent reader, familiar with principles, can have little use for stereotyped forms of wills, which are generally too rigid for any practical application in other cases. The writer desires to explain that in the course of preparing the present book he deemed it economical to refer the reader to his other writings, as they really constitute separate parts of one complete design, the foundations of which were laid down many years since. Otherwise, voluminous repetitions, which would have enlarged its scope beyond reasonable limits, might have ensued in this volume. This explanation will afford also the writer's apology for cross references to his own prior writings. Without this explanation, such cross-references would, doubtless, appear to be unseemly. With such explanation, the author trusts the reason for the method adopted will not be misunderstood by the indulgent reader. This particular treatise is an attempt to furnish, in some detail, the history and theory of application of the Decedent Estate Law. That the treatise itself completely fulfils the author's design can not be claimed. Its shortcomings the generous reader will, however, doubt less, overlook, in consideration of the value of the documentary material, collected in this volume and highly explanatory of the Decedent Estate Law. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.