A LEGAL DIFFICULTY.
(
Money Puzzles)
"A client of mine," said a lawyer, "was on the point of death when his
wife was about to present him with a child. I drew up his will, in which
he settled two-thirds of his estate upon his son (if it should happen to
be a boy) and one-third on the mother. But if the child should be a
girl, then two-thirds of the estate should go to the mother and
one-third to the daughter. As a matter of fact, after his death twins
were born--a boy and a girl. A very nice point then arose. How was the
estate to be equitably divided among the three in the closest possible
accordance with the spirit of the dead man's will?"
Answer:
It was clearly the intention of the deceased to give the son twice as
much as the mother, or the daughter half as much as the mother.
Therefore the most equitable division would be that the mother should
take two-sevenths, the son four-sevenths, and the daughter one-seventh.
Informational
