Ward Hunt

“ In an action brought, not as administrator, but in an individual character, to recover an individual debt, where the right of action depends upon the death of a third party,-to wit, an insurance upon his life,-do letters of administration upon the estate of such party, issued by the proper Probate Court, afford legal evidence of his death? ”

“ Different States have different provisions as to who may be executor or administrator, excluding some persons and preferring others, in the order and manner in their statutes specified. Thus persons convicted of infamous crime are excluded from this office, and persons of notoriously evil lives may be passed by in the discretion of the Probate Court. Sons or daughters or widows are entitled to take in preference to others: unmarried women are entitled in preference to married women. Certain notices may be, and usually are, required to be given of the proceedings to obtain letters ”