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272 WILLIAMS' CASE.
and then such a sum, $349 06, also as, with compound interest,
would amount to it. The calculation of the probable duration of
Mrs, Dorsey's life is made from Dr. Halley's Table of Observa-
tions, which for a long time has been used as the foundation of such
computations. The bill stated Mrs. Dorsey's age to be between
forty-two or forty-three, or thereabouts. The answer admitted it.
In February, 1817, when the complainant Dorsey, bought the
legacy referred to, she must have been about forty. She then had
an even chance of living twenty-two years, and the legacy was
payable one year after her death.'
This is an instance of a reversionary payment; and, being a
legacy charged upon real estate, would, according to the English
law, and perhaps also according to our law, but for a single expres-
sion of the will, have lapsed for the benefit of the inheritance, if
the legatee had died before the day of payment; and consequently,
in that case, to ascertain its value on the 17th of February, 1817,
it would have been not only necessary to deduct from it the value
of the life of the person until whose death it was not to be paid, but
also the value of the legatee's chance of living until the day of pay-
ment, (u) But the testator says my brother shall, 'pay to my sis-
ters Margaret and Mary Wheatly, or to their heirs? five hundred
pounds current money each;' from which expression, 'or to their
heirs,' it may be presumed, that he intended these legacies should
vest immediately; and consequently, they are not subject to the
contingency of lapsing for the benefit of the inheritance, or of being
wholly lost by the death of the legatee before the day of payment.
Here, however, was presented to the court a case for ascertain-
ing the present value of a reversionary payment In which case,
as in all others relative to the value of a life interest, the important
point, from which the inquiry must set out, is, that of the proper
expectation of life of the person upon whose existence the inte-
rest depends, or after whose death the sum is to become payable ;
and, that being determined, every thing else must be the result
of calculation.
It will be seen by adverting to the preceding tables, that the ex-
pectation of life from which, in this case, the auditor might have,
set out, ranges from nineteen to thirty-one years, according to the
table from which Mrs. Dorsey's expectation of life was taken.
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(w) 1 Price Obser. ch.3; Will, Exrs 781; 1810, ch. 34, s. 4; Collet v. Wollaston, 3 Bro. C. C, 228.
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