THE BENCH AND BAR BY HON. WILLIAM B. NEFF LAWS are rules of action. Courts are instrumentalities charged with the function of enforcing laws. Lawyers are officers of the courts, and aid the courts in the enforcement of laws. Laws prescribe and regulate rights, and redress wrongs. Rights are divided into two classes : rights to property, and personal rights. The genesis of property rights is this : take two savages, in a state of nature ; one kills game, and brings it home, eats part of it, and secretes the rest ; the other steals it. The other one brings home what he kills, secretes it, and is, in turn, robbed by his neighbor. After repeated experiences of this kind, they both come to the conclusion that the only way for them to reap the highest rewards of their labors is for each to respect the property rights of the other. This, in the last analysis, is undoubtedly the origin of the right of property. Personal rights owe their origin to a like course of evolution and experience. Primitive men could enjoy no personal security, until they were brought to a realization that they owed: their own personal safety to a general recognition of the right to personal security. This law gradually enlarged until it embraced communities and states. These simple laws, thus evolved from human experience, are at once the origin, the inspiration and the life of civilization. No society, polity, state or nation can long endure which does not write into its organic law, recognition and enforcement of these primal elements of social organization. As Fisher Ames, in his great speech on the Jay Treaty, says : "If all who have suffered death for the crime of murder, were brought to resurrection, placed upon an island, and bidden to form the structure of a state, which should endure for a single generation, they would be impelled, by the very nature of things, to prescribe the sanctions for murder, for the violation of which they had, themselves, forfeited their lives." Primitive men settled their differences by force. The strong were forever in the right, the weak, forever in the wrong. "Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne." Civilized communities substitute courts as arbiters, for appeals to force. It is true that all disputes are not settled by arbitraments of courts, but the fact that courts exist, where differences may be tried out, restrains men, in a thousand ways, from transgressions against their neighbors. The courts serve as a sort of balance wheel, to regulate, to restrain, and to prescribe the activities of men. Men, in general, fail to realize that, in the last analysis, they hold their property, and their very lives, by dint of the fact that they can appeal to the courts for the protection of both. The courts are the only 6 - The Bench and Bar of Northern Ohio shield which protects the individual from the aggressions of the state, the only shield which protects the minority from the aggressions of the majority. It has been suggested that there should be a recall of judicial decisions. This would inevitably bring ruin to the state. Suppose this rule were applied to the game of baseball. Suppose that the crowd could recall, or revise, a "rotten" decision of an umpire. This popular game could not possibly survive a single season, under such a system. How, then, could a civil polity survive, under a dispensation that would spell ruin to a mere game ? Courts are as old as civilization, as necessary as justice. Lawyers are as necessary as courts. "Can a lawyer be honest ?" I have often been asked. I have usually countered by asking, "Can a lawyer be dishonest ?" In other walks of life, and notably in many of the so-called learned professions, men may achieve noteworthy success, without a high degree of personal integrity, but at the bar, it is absolutely impossible for a dishonest lawyer to attain the highest success. "Can a lawyer espouse a cause he knows to be wrong?" I practiced law for a goodly number of years, and never, once, so far as I can now recall, encountered such a situation, or such a question. A client comes into your office, states his case, brings his neighbors, who confirm his statements ; you believe what your client and his witnesses say, and become convinced of the justice of his cause, and it is very rare that a conviction is ever forced upon you, that your client is in the wrong. This question of casuistry is seldom more than merely academic, for the practicing lawyer seldom meets it, in the actual course of his business. An old doctor once put this question to me, and I answered him, substantially, as I have answered here. I then put this question to him : "Doctor, you say you have practiced medicine for forty years." He answered that he had. "You know more, now, about diseases and remedies than you knew when you began to practice, do you not ?" "Oh, undoubtedly, sir." "Well, then, can you not recall cases where you were required to act in critical junctures, and sudden emergencies, and adopted courses of treatment which resulted fatally to your patients —courses of treatment which maturer experience demonstrated to be wrong?" "Oh, yes." "Well," I said, "what does your conscience do about such cases ?" "Oh," he says, "I don't allow myself to think about them !" I believe that there is a finer spirit of fraternity, or chivalry, among lawyers, than among any other class of professional men, and I attribute this to the fact that lawyers fight out their differences, in the open forum of the courts. Feelings of jealousy, or bitterness; or asperity, thus find a vent, and do not lurk, and fester, and corrode, as they would do, were they not afforded ready means of open expression. I remember that, before coming to Cleveland to practice my profession, I went to Toledo to ascertain if that might be an eligible place to locate, and I was surprised at the unanimity with which lawyers there said, "Yes, come here, for you cannot possibly find a better place than right here !" I doubt whether members of any other profession would have responded so generously and so disinterestedly to such a suggestion. There is another fact, connected with the practice of the law, that is unique. Preachers reach a dead line, at forty, and seldom grow, The Bench and Bar of Northern Ohio - 7 after attaining that age. Lawyers will continue to develop and improve up to seventy, and beyond. Some years ago, when Chief Justice Fuller, Justices Harlan, Brewer and Field, were on the bench of the Supreme Court of the United States, I read that the average age of the members of that court was seventy-four ! This, I think, is due to two primary facts : first, because no two cases are ever just alike ; second, the fellow on the other side of the trial table is a lynx-eyed nemesis, and remorselessly exposes your shortcomings and thus keeps you alert, vigilant and cautious, to the last degree. The minister may proclaim any doctrine, however fallacious, and escape challenge, but the trial lawyer knows that no blunder of his can hope to escape a merciless castigation, then and there, and in open court. Edmund Burke says that the study of the law will do more to render the mind acute than all other kinds of learning, but he adds that it cannot be said to enlarge and liberalize the mind, in the same proportion. Another thing which tends to give unusual acuteness to the lawyer, is cross-examination. Cross-examination is an art, and requires, for its highest exercise, the faculty of analysis and recombination, to such a degree as perhaps no other form of mental exertion involves. In direct-examination you have, as the word implies, a simple, unqualified, and straightforward process. Cross-examination, on the contrary, is like a kaleidoscope, and consists in turning side lights upon the subject in hand, such as will serve to illuminate it, from all sides. It is clear, therefore, that, to a successful cross-examiner, there is needed a power of analysis, discernment, acuteness, and resourcefulness, combined with a breadth of vision, almost unlimited. Every law suit is a tragedy to the parties engaged in it, yet in spite of this fact there is no theater of activity among men that abounds to such an extent in ludicrous and amusing situations. As Lord Byron says, "Man is a pendulum, swaying from a sigh to a tear." To properly discharge the functions of a judge, it is necessary that the judge should be possessed of a thorough knowledge of the law, be possessed of sound judgment, be endowed with great patience, and have a sort of genius for investigation ; but he must also be gifted with something almost akin to a sixth sense. Let me illustrate. An old king had in his cabinet a prime minister upon whose advice and assistance he relied for many years. Finally, the premier died. The king decided that he would not select a prime minister from among the petty lordlings and sycophants of the court, but would choose some one, wholly unconnected with his court. So, one day he stood upon a bridge, and, as different men came along he asked, "What is that object floating on the water over there ?" and every one to whom he put the question, said, "An orange, sire," and passed on. At last an old man came along, to whom the king addressed the same question ; whereupon the old man went down to the side of the river, picked up a stick, and turned the floating object over, and answered, "A half of an orange, sire !" Thereupon the old king said, "I want you for my prime minister !" Another illustration : "A young student was so poor that he could not afford to buy enough to eat, yet he had a towering ambition to secure an education. He found, however, that if he sat near the open 8 - The Bench and Bar of Northern Ohio window of a bakery, where bread was baking, and inhaled the odor of the baking bread, it would, in some measure, assuage his hunger. After he had been accustomed to sit there, for several weeks, on an occasion, the baker discovered it, and demanded a pound sterling, as compensation, from the poor student. An argument arose, and while they were disputing the town fool came along, and they agreed to submit the case to him. The town fool heard their statements, and, turning to the baker, said, "Have you a marble slab for testing the genuineness of the coin of the poor student ?" The baker said he had. "Then bring it here." The baker brought the marble slab, whereupon the town fool took a guinea from the poor student, and, addressing the baker, said, "Now, listen !" Whereupon he jingled the coin on the marble slab. "Did you hear that ?" Said the baker, "Yes, I heard that." "Well, now, listen again ;" and he sounded the guinea the second time, upon the marble slab. "Did you hear that ?" "Yes, 1 heard that ; undoubtedly." "Very well, sir : the student has inhaled the odor of your baking bread, and you have heard the jingle of his coin ; the account is therefore settled, and I keep the pound for my services, as judge !" What I seek to call attention to, by means of the first of these illustrations, is that a judge should be gifted with such a genius for investigation as would make him distrust mere appearances, and, therefore, turn the orange over to get at the real facts. By the second illustration I wish to emphasize an appreciation in a judge, of judicial and ethical equivalents. In 1905 I stood on the Strand, in London, directly opposite where Temple Bar was located. It will be remembered that it was at Temple Bar that the king gave to the newly-elected Lord Mayor of London, the keys of the city. That ceremonial was practiced for generations in London. As I stood there I realized that being one of the limits of the old London town, how small, territorially, the historic London really was—scarcely more than a village ; and yet, village as it was, it wrought tremendous influence upon civilization throughout the world. In fact, England now controls perhaps a sixth or a seventh of the habitable globe. And I believe, much as the law of primogeniture has been challenged and criticized for its injustice, because it gives to the oldest son all of the vast baronial estates of England, it is yet one of the prime sources of the tremendous influence of England upon the history of the world, and for this reason : the eldest son took all the wealth, all the property of the family. The younger sons, however, were given the finest education available in England. They were brought up to habits of study, to habits of life which fitted them to fill places of large responsibility in public life ; and for well nigh three hundred years England has drawn from these sources for her great publicists, and I solemnly believe that much of the splendid influence that England has been permitted to exercise upon the life and the civilization of the world, is due to the fact that it has had this almost inexhaustible supply from which to draw its statesmen and public men. Of course, latterly, the evolution has stopped, because, in an evil hour. the younger sons of the noble houses of England discovered that ambitious heiresses of America could supplement and supply their lack of fortune ; and so, instead of the evolution going toward the development of statesmen, it has tended, rather, to go to the development of loafers, dudes, and ineffectives. The Bench and Bar of Northern Ohio - 9 However, resuming our place at Temple Bar, let us step across the street and through that archway, and go into what I could call the sacred precincts of the Inner Temple, the Middle Temple—called "Temple," because the old Templar Church was built there more than a thousand years ago, and still stands. As you go in, you see an object at the left, a stone, six or seven feet long, lying upon the ground. I walked over to it, and as I reached it, I read, "Here lies Oliver Goldsmith." I took off my hat. Poor "Noll," "who wrote like an angel and talk'd like Poor Poll," was one of the most gifted of the sons of men, and he enjoys the unique distinction of having written the one perfect poem in the English language, and that is "The Deserted Village." I have, myself, tried, time and again, to see if I could not possibly substitute some word of my own, in place of the word used by him, but in every instance I failed, because I found that such attempted substitution would either mar the sense, or spoil the rhythm. As I stood by the grave of Goldsmith, I remembered of reading how, that one Sunday afternoon, in the rain, the members of his club stood about his open grave. There was Doctor Samuel Johnson, the most masculine intelligence of his time, and by his side stood Edmund Burke, whose orations are at once the eloquence of philosophy, and the philosophy of eloquence, and by his side stood David Garrick, the most versatile actor of all time, and by him stood Sir Joshua Reynolds, artist, poet, man of letters, and on the other side, James Boswell, who has given to literature its finest biography. In his "Life of Dr. Samuel Johnson," he has enabled any one, as he has, indeed, enabled me, to know Dr. Samuel Johnson perfectly. I know that man, today, better than I know any other man, because in the biography of Dr. Samuel Johnson, that is, in the life picture, the roots of the word meaning "life picture," he has given, with such a nicety of detail, the daily life of Dr. Samuel Johnson, that you know the -man thoroughly if you study the book. There is no other biography in existence that gives so fine a life picture as does this. Leaving the grave of Goldsmith, let us step over to the Temple Church. There is not a window in it. It is conical in shape, and there lie the effigies of Lord Pembroke. and ten others of the Crusaders. Those who died in battle have their legs crossed. Those who died in their beds lie straight out. Let us step out of the church, and right here was the little flower garden, where the Duke of York plucked a white rose, and the Duke of Lancaster a red rose, and thus began the Wars of the Roses that ravaged England through several reigns, and make up the substance of those marvelous histories of Shakespeare, in many senses the most majestic compositions in any language. They almost excel his inimitable tragedies. But, I have come here, more especially to have you step with me around into Brick Court, still in the Temple—No. 2 Brick Court ; an old building, I don't know how old, but certainly very old, and three stories high. On the first floor, Thackeray once lived, and wrote some of his finest works. Charles Lamb was born within a stone's throw of Brick Court. When Oliver Goldsmith projected his "History of Animated Nature," he took it to his publishers, and they were so delighted with it that they advanced him 500 pounds. This made the thriftless, the thoughtless, the gay and the giddy Oliver suddenly rich ; to him, 10 - The Bench and Bar of Northern Ohio rich almost "beyond the dreams of avarice," to quote Sam Johnson's expression. And so he rented the second story of this building, fitted up the rooms in regal state, and in celebration of his sudden access of good fortune, invited in the members of his club, Johnson, Burke, and the rest, and they came. And in the night they made merry up until eleven o'clock when, at eleven o'clock there was a rap at the door. Goldsmith went to the door and opened it. A gentleman bowed. "Good evening, gentlemen. My name is Sir William Blackstone. I live below. I am engaged in the preparation of a book to be entitled, `Commentaries on the Laws of England.' Your hilarity, gentlemen, disturbs me in my work. I wish you would abate, somewhat, from the excess of your joyousness ;" and bowed himself out. They were more quiet after that, and Blackstone went on with his immortal work. It may seem beside the purpose of this article, but I cannot resist the temptation to call attention to what, perhaps, is the latest development in the Shakespeare-Baconian controversy. A professor of Harvard college has recently discovered, in Somerset House, where the archives of England, for hundreds of years, are kept, a deposition, given by William Shakespeare. From that deposition, it appears that a haberdasher who had his place of business just across from the old Globe Theater, where Shakespeare played, and wrote, and almost lived, for twenty years—the haberdasher had a daughter ; and I am almost tempted to quote from Polonius, and say, "Still harping on my daughter." Shakespeare says, in his deposition, that he heard a conversation, in which the haberdasher said to the young man, "If you will marry my daughter I will take you into my business, and give you a half interest." Shakespeare says, "I lived in the room above the shop, just across from this theater, from a certain year to another"—some three or four years ; and it turns out that that is the very time when he wrote his magnificent trilogy of masterpieces, "Lear," "Macbeth" and "Othello." Mary Fitton, the black-eyed siren of the Sonnets, with whom Shakespeare had fallen desperately in love, jilted him, broke his heart, and he wrote those masterpieces out of his very heart's blood. He never could have written them, otherwise. Cruel to the last degree, but the cruelty of fate was kindness itself to the race. As someone said, "If you wish to hear a nightingale sing sweetly, thrust a hot needle into its eye." A writer said, of a certain actress, "There is only one way in which she can ever become great, and that is for some man to marry her and break her heart, and then, out of a broken heart, she will develop into a great artist." The Globe Theater. Let us linger here a moment ; a place redolent of historic interest, fascinating, to me. It was open at the top, without a roof in the center. The pit was where the ordinary theater-goer stood—not sat, but stood ; the galleries, where sometimes people sat, but usuallly not ; and down in the pit, the theater-goers smoked a dried weed that had just shortly theretofore been brought over from Virginia, and they called it "tobacco." Of course, it has so completely gone out of use now that perhaps any person reading this article would have to go to an encyclopedia to find what that weed was ( ?). The lordlings about the court, and the idlers, and rich chaps, young bloods, generally stood up on the stage. Female characters were impersonated by boys ; as Cleopatra says : The Bench and Bar of Northern Ohio - 11 "And have some one boy my greatness, In likeness of a prostitute." and no scenery at all. A board, rudely written upon, "This is Venice," would answer for. Venice. But, do you know, Emerson says, "Nature hides her sweetest fruits under richest covers" ; and to the very fact that there was no scenery we owe the most magnificent prologues ever written in the world. Take two examples : "O, for a muse of fire, that would ascend The brightest heaven of invention, A kingdom for a stage, princes to act. And monarchs to behold the swelling scene ! Then should the warlike Henry, like himself, Assume the port of Mars, and at his heels Leashed in like hounds, should famine, sword and fire Crouch for employment." Take that other prologue, in the beginning of Henry V : "Hung be the heavens with black, yield day to night ! Comets, importing change of times and states, Brandish your crystal tresses in the sky, And with them scourge the bad, revolting stars, That have consented unto Henry's death." Had the theater been replete with scenery, as it now is, no such drafts would have been made upon the marvelous invention of Shakespeare. And I cannot now resist, although perhaps it is not germane, to quote what I think is the finest sentence ever written on this side of the Atlantic ocean. Emerson is telling of Shakespeare, the winsomeness, the witchery, the wonder, of Shakespeare's diction, its magical suggestiveness. He is trying to wreak his thought upon expression, to body forth his conception of Shakespeare's unrivaled command of the sources of English expression, and he uses this sentence, which, in my judgment, is the finest ever written by anybody, this side of the Atlantic : "The recitation begins. One golden word leaps out, immortal, from all that painted pedantry, and sweetly torments us with invitations to its own inaccessible homes." It has been suggested to me that in this article I should relate some incidents that have occurred at the bar, and upon the bench, during the course of my experience, both as a lawyer and as a judge. When the city had not yet assumed metropolitan proportions, while yet it was scarcely more than a village, men seemed to possess more individuality than they do now. At present, in this metropolis of well-nigh a million people, men are mere units, or members ; but in the days of old, "the days of gold," men's characters were differentiated, and the personal equation bulked larger than it does now. When I first came to Cleveland, Judge Sherlock J. Andrews was accounted the most eloquent lawyer at the bar. He was a man of rare scholarship, wide reading, a typical gentleman of the old school, and gifted with a magnetic eloquence that was almost irresistible. He was also possessed of a rare sense of humor. On one occasion he was trying a case in which his client was suing for the use and occupation of certain premises. The defense that was set up was that the property was untenantable, for many reasons, one of which was that it was infested with vermin ; in other words, it was lousy. In his argument, 12 - The Bench and Bar of Northern Ohio Judge Andrews, referring to this suggestion, said : "Gentlemen of the jury, this little suggestion is entitled to no weight in this case. It is utterly insignificant and unworthy of consideration, and has crept into this case through the head of counsel." Judge Rufus P. Ranney was a commanding figure at the bar, in those early days. He had sat upon the supreme bench of the state, and his reported opinions are classics, are judicial literature of the highest order. His diction was copious, elegant and exact, while his knowledge of the law was profound. Judge Finnefrock, of Fremont, told me that he was once sitting in the district court. The old district court, being composed of three common pleas judges, was sitting here, in Cleveland, and they were hearing a chancery case, in which Judge Ranney was on one side and Judge Robert Payne was on the other side. Judge Ranney argued that the plaintiff was seeking to enforce a stale equity, that he had slept on his rights for such a length of time that a court of equity should refuse to grant him the relief which he sought. Judge Ranney went on, in his suave and plausible manner, multiplying examples of stale equity. Judge Finnefrock said that he noticed that Judge Payne was profoundly angered and aroused by Judge Ranney's argument. He was so much angered that his chest heaved, his face paled, and his lips were livid. When Judge Ranney, at last, sat down, Judge Payne jumped to his feet, and in a voice tremulous with emotion said, "Your Honors, I admit that lapse of time may sometimes disentitle a plaintiff to relief to which he would otherwise be entitled ; but I deny—I deny that any mere lapse of time, however great, can sanctify a G— D—lie !" Judge Finne frock says he almost fell out of his chair, at the fulmination of that sudden and abrupt statement, almost like a catapult. Judge Ranney was once arguing a demurrer before Judge Barber. While Ranney was speaking, Judge Barber beckoned to his bailiff, and the bailiff came up, and Judge Barber whispered to the bailiff, and the bailiff brought a volume of the supreme court reports. Judge Barber opened it, and was reading it, and Judge Ranney went on with his argument. Finally, Judge Barber said, "But, Judge Ranney, 1 notice that in this decision, in the supreme court," citing it "that you held just the opposite of what you are now arguing to me. What do you say about that ?" Nothing daunted, the judge responded, "Well, if your Honor please, I have learned lots of law since then !" Judges Robert Payne and Daniel R. Tilden, the latter of whom was probate judge for thirty-three years, were very devoted friends. Some time before the death of Judge Payne, they sat down and drew up a written agreement, and signed it, the agreement being that the one who should die first would, by every possible means, endeaver to communicate with his surviving friend. Long, long after the death of Judge Payne, Judge Tilden went to spiritualistic seances, in an effort to hear from his old friend, but, strain his eyes as much as he might, he could trace the shadow of no form, or, strain his ears however intently, he could hear the flutter of no wing ; for out of the vast silence there came no voice, there issued no sound. Judge R. P. Spalding .was a conspicuous figure, in those early days ; tall, grave, stately, he was a majestic figure of a man. The newspapers clubbed him "Resolutionary P. Spalding," because, at every Democratic The Bench and Bar of Northern Ohio - 13 convention, he was always loaded with a set of resolutions, which were uniformly adopted with enthusiasm. One morning Judge Spalding, walking down Euclid avenue, was met by a friend, and his friend said to him, "Judge, I don't see why you keep a law office. You don't do much business, you are rich, and I don't see what need you have of an office." The Judge said, "Why, my friend, I have been going down to my office every morning for fifty years. Do you suppose I could stop now ?" When I came to Cleveland, I heard this, of Judge Foote, who had passed out before I came. He was a candidate for re-election to the common pleas bench, and while crossing the public square a man stepped up to him and said, "Judge, I am of opposite politics to you, but I am going to vote for you for re-election as judge." To which the Judge unceremoniously responded, "I don't give a damn whether you do or not !" John Crowell was a prominent figure here in those early times. He was the head of a law school, gave lectures to students, as well as engaged in general practice. One morning John came into court to try a case. There were three prominent lawyers lined along the other side of the trial table. John serenely looked from one to another, until he had taken into his vision all of the three, and said, "Well, here is Ranney, here is Burke, here is Ingersoll ; truly, a combination ; but not to be feared, by a damn sight !" Judge Samuel F. Prentiss was a spare, meager sort of man, physically, but gifted with a judicial acumen and poise beyond that of anyone who has ever sat upon the common pleas bench in this county. He was the fourth in a succession of judges, in his family. Severe, however, as was his judicial makeup, he still had a fine sense of humor, and enjoyed a quiet joke. One day he had a petition which had been written by "Bob" Davidson, as we called him. "Bob" was a gruff old Scotchman, genial and hearty, and a good lawyer, too, well grounded in legal prineiples, but not carefully educated. Judge Prentiss looked up, holding "Bob's" petition in his hand, and he said, "Why, Mr. Davidson, I see that you have spelled the word 'petition' three di f ferent ways in this paper." "Bob' said, "Oh, if your Honor please, a man is a mighty poor scholar that can't spell a word more than one way !" In those early days the courts did not limit arguments by lawyers to juries. One morning "Bill" Robison was holding the stage, when the judge came down off the bench, and stepped out into the corridor and lighted his pipe. He smoked a clay pipe, with a very much abbreviated stem. A lawyer who happened to have a case next to the one on trial asked Judge Prentiss, "Judge, about how soon do you think you will be ready for my case?" The judge said, "Well, you see, 'Bill' is talking to the jury ; he commenced at nine o'clock this morning, it is now half-past eleven, and he has now got down to Noah and his ark ; I think he will close about half-past two, this afternoon." Some wag wrote up a petition, the effect of which was that his honor, Judge Prentiss, should be taken into custody by the county sheriff, and conducted to the center of the public square, and there, at high noon, be hanged by the neck until he was dead. The wag had no trouble in getting signatures, because he could rush into a lawyer's office and say, "Here's a petition I would like for you to sign." "I 14 - The Bench and Bar of Northern Ohio haven't got any time to talk." "Well, put your name down"—and he did, and he got quite a large number of signatures to that petition. William Robison was as finely endowed with gifts of imagination and originality as any man I have ever known. He seemed to view all subjects from odd angles. He would seem, somehow, to grip a sort of fourth dimension of everything, and he abounded in all sorts of original ideas and expressions. He was a very eloquent man, fluent, poetical, oftentimes magnetic in his speech. One morning Judge Cad-well opened court ; and, in those days, each judge called his own calendar. There were very few people in the court room. Some distance away from the bench there was a bevy of lawyers, standing conversing ; and Judge Cadwell called a case. Nobody responded. He said, "Mr. Robison, I see you are in this case." "Yes, your Honor." "Well, are you ready ?" "Bill" asked, "Is the other side ready, your Honor ?" "No, they don't seem to be." "Then, I'm ready, your Honor." "Bill" was sent by some mayor down to the police court to fill a temporary vacancy; caused by the fact that the judge sitting there was taking a short vacation, and the first case that came up before "Bill" was a case in which a great, broad-shouldered, stalwart fellow, over six feet, charged a little, shriveled up, weasened old woman, with assault and battery, claiming that she had struck him with a broom stick. The proof was clear. There was practically no denial on the part of the defendant of the fact of the assault and battery, but this was "Bill's" summing up : "The evidence tends almost conclusively to establish that the defendant committed assault upon the person of the prosecuting witness ; but," he said, "in the course of the trial it has been developed that this old lady is seventy-six years old. Now, the Holy Scriptures tell us that the natural age of man is three score years and ten. This being apparent, upon the face of the record, and undisputed, I hold that, inasmuch as the defendant on this record is seventy-six years of age, she has outlived the jurisdiction of this court for the full term of six years, and is therefore discharged." A. J. Marwin had a great reputation, and great skill, in breaking wills. He seemed to be almost invincible. No will seemed to be able to stand under the terrific onslaughts that he was able to make on it. He would stand up and cry, and the jury would cry, and the court would join in the general chorus of sobs. The flood was almost enough to wash the furniture out of the court room. Well, he had a case on trial, one day, in which "Bill" was on the opposite side. "Bill" realized that unless he could break the effect of Marwin's tears he would lose his case. So, as usual, Marwin had everybody crying, himself included, when "Bill" arose to answer Marwin's argument. "Gentlemen of the jury," he said, "I perceive that you are visibly affected by the very pathetic appeal which Brother Marwin has addressed to you, and I see he has even moved you to tears, and he has appeared to be crying, himself.. Now, I used to weep with him, until I discovered the real facts in the case." Just then, Marwin, who was a very short man, with broad shoulders, but very short, stepped over to the bailiff's desk, with his back to the jury, poured out a glass of water and took a drink. "Bill" turned to him and he said. "Gentlemen. see how short Marwin is. The trouble about Marwin's makeup is that his bladder was put too close to his eyes ; so you see, gentlemen, he was not crying at all." That will stood. The Bench and Bar of Northern Ohio - 15 One day Justice Goddard had a justice shop at about No. 222 Superior street, and I remember, to get to his office, you went up a rickety old stairway. One day I was going up, and as I got to the top of the stairs I heard, in sonorous tones, these words : "Gentlemen, in the name of God and country." "Well," I said to myself, "by George, I mustn't miss that." So I hurried to the room, and Mr. W. S. Kerruish stood by the doorway, listening. It was "Bill" Robison, addressing a jury of six, in a justice court, and I said to Mr. Kerruish, "This must be a case of some magnitude, to justify such rhetoric as that." "Oh, pshaw !" he said, "nothing but an old cow case !" Jeff Stewart was a character, in those days, when characters abounded at this bar. He had a great long mustache like a Texas ranger. He had eyes like a Chinaman, arms almost as long as a gorilla, which he would swing wildly to and fro as he talked ; and a voice of thunder. A divorce case had been tried in the common pleas court, and the wife was granted divorce and alimony. The husband took an appeal to the old district court, composed of three common pleas judges, on the alimony feature of the case. The husband claimed that she was a woman of bad character, and therefore should have no alimony at all. Jeff got up and began to talk ; got up very close to where the judges were, and got himself wrought up to a tremendous pitch of enthusiasm, and suddenly he turned, stepped back to the trial table, grasped his client's right wrist and marched her up to the bench, opened out her palm and held it right under the very noses of the judges, and it bore marks of hard work, and he said, "Gentlemen judges, does this look like the hand of a woman of bad character? No, by G—." You could have heard him, Judge Finnefrock said, a mile, he thundered it with such tremendous energy. Sam Eddy was easily the prince of good fellows, always smiling, genial, kindly. He would come up to you and take a nickel out of his pocket and say, "Well, I guess I'll accept your invitation to dinner"—and he would. But whatever Sam had was as much yours as it was his. He was trying a case one day, and General Meyer was on the other side. General Meyer was just the reverse of Sam Eddy, unsmiling, stern, and austere, always earnest, energetic, and eloquent, too. At one juncture of the trial General Meyer could stand Sam Eddy's effusive smiles and good humor no longer, and he jumped up in a great rage and smote the table, and said to Judge Hamilton, "If your Honor please, I don't propose to allow Sam Eddy to laugh my case out of court." The judge looked down benignantly over his spectacles, and said, "Mr. Eddy, are you trying to laugh General Meyer's case out of court ?" "Oh, no, your Honor," he said, "I didn't think I could quite succeed in laughing it out, but I thought it might help some." In those early days it was the custom, when a lawyer died, to hold memorial services in the court-house, speeches were made, and I think the finest eulogy, certainly the finest eulogy I have ever heard at a bar meeting of that kind, was delivered by L. A. Russell, upon the death of Sam Eddy. Russell got up, in his erratic fashion, and said, "Well, Sam's dead. Now," he said, "some people tell me that when a man dies he goes to heaven. Some say that many go to hell. Now," he said, "Sam didn't belong to any church, and so I don't know where Sam went, but this thing I do know, that wherever Sam is, he is trying to help some poor fellow who is worse off than he is, himself." 16 - The Bench and Bar of Northern Ohio And the beauty of it was that it fitted Sam exactly, fitted him like a glove. Judge Jackson, who came up here from Bucyrus, was a very powerful jury orator. I remember a juror's saying to me once, after hearing one of Jackson's terrific outbursts of eloquence, "Why, Mr. Neff, Judge Jackson lifts a feller right out of his boots." The judge had made one of his characteristic speeches, and L. A. Russell rose to answer him, in defense, and said : "Gentlemen, I went down to Annapolis, Maryland, not long ago, and went out to the navy-yard, and there I saw a great gun, the largest gun that, up to that time, had ever been cast anywhere in the world, which was called 'The Swamp Angel.' " I have forgotten how large it was, but it was very large. "And I was thinking, while Judge Jackson was talking, what would be the effect, if, instead of the judge's coming in here, he had brought the `Swamp Angel,' and had filled it full of powder, and stamped it down with a ram rod, as hard as he could, and then touched a match to it ; what would have been the result ? Why, it would have shivered the glass of every window in this room ; it would have caused the plastering to fall ; it would have created a general commotion ; but, gentlemen of the jury, how much effect would it have had upon the issues of this case ? It would have had precisely as much effect as the terrific outburst of eloquence that you have listened to from Judge Jackson." One day General Durbin Ward came up from Cincinnati to attend the races, and the local Democracy, learning that he was here, improvised a sort of reception, got a brass band, and started a procession down to the Weddell House, and when they got down there they called, "General Ward, General Ward, speech, speech !" The general came out, and bowed very ceremoniously and said, "Fellow Democrats. I have come up from the grimy city of Cincinnati to your beautiful metropolis by the inland sea, to enjoy the hos—, the hos—, the hospitality of your citizens." At the Kennard House, on its western front, there are little iron balconies. In 1866 Andrew Johnson, then President of the United States, while "swinging around the circle," stood in the little middle balcony, and made a speech, which was the principal article in his impeachment trial. And, while I am indulging in reminiscences of locations, I might add that General Cass, running as a candidate for the presidency, made his great, historic break, in speaking of "the sweet, German accent, and rich, Irish brogue." The Know-Nothings turned against him, and it cost him his election. This speech was delivered from a little balcony or porch just above the main entrance of the American House. We had a firm, known as Mix, Noble & White. Mr. John White is the only survivor of that firm. Mr. Mix was commonly known as "Bob" Mix. He lived to be 82 years old. He always had a florid complexion, and seemed to be in the possession of the very best of good health. Somebody said to him, "Mr. Mix, what is the secret of your good health ?" "Secret ? There isn't any secret about it. Any man can be healthy, if he will keep his bowels open, and vote the Democratic ticket." Mr. W. S. Kerruish, who is now, I think, eighty-nine years old, a ripe scholar, who reads his Cicero in the original, with the utmost facility, has always been distinguished for his ability to coin new The Bench and Bar of Norther it Ohio - 17 phrases. I remember, once, he put a peculiarly characteristic question, to which the other side objected, and I sustained the objection. Mr. Kerruish arose and said, “Upon what ground does the court sustain this objection?" I told him. “No," he said, "if your Honor please, this question cuts a thicker shaving than that." At another time, he and Judge Jones, who had recently retired from common pleas bench, were trying an alimony case before me—the Gayton case. Mr. Kerruish offered some letters, which Gayton had written to his wife. Judge Jones objected to their introduction, claiming they were not relevant. I said, "Gentlemen, I shall have to commit the seeming absurdity of reading the letters, to determine their competency." I read them. I said to Mr. Kerruish, "I don't see, Mr. Kerruish, how these letters are relevant upon any issue in this case." "Well," he said, "I don't exactly offer them as being pertinent to any issue of the case, but I do offer them as specimens of the defendant's intellectual output." Somebody asked, "Mr. Kerruish, what did Judge Stone do with your motion for a new trial ?" He said, "Oh, pshaw ! he sat up on the furniture, and overruled it." He was cross-examining a witness once, and said to the witness, "You're a fiddler, aren't you ?" "No, sir," indignantly responded the witness, "I am a violinist." "Well," he said, "what is the difference between a fiddler and a violinist ? I would like to know." "Well, Mr. Kerruish, there is the same difference between a 'fiddler' and a 'violinist' as there is between you and a real lawyer." There was once, many years ago, a firm known as Heisley & Kerruish. Heisley was, himself, a character. There had lived on Hicks street, on the south side, a maiden lady, who had no near relatives, except some nephews and nieces. Suddenly, one morning, she disappeared, and was not heard from for over seven years. At the end of seven years, she not having been heard from, the nephews and nieces went into the probate court, and, in proper proceedings, secured a judgment of the court, to the effect that the old lady was dead ; her property was ordered sold, and, upon sale, the proceeds of the sale were distributed among her impecunious nephews and nieces. Shortly thereafter, she came back, and finding other people in the house, they claiming to own it, she came over to consult "Bill" Heisley. She and "Bill" went over to the probate court, and "Bill" went over the record very carefully, and said, "Madam, you are dead." "No, but Mr. Heisley, I am not. I deny it. I am not dead." "Ah, but, Madam, you are dead." "Well, who says that I am dead ?" "Why, Stare Decisis." "Stare Decisis? I don't know any such man. Well, I do know one thing, that whatever else he may be, he is an awful liar, because I ain't dead." "Bill" says, "Madam, you are dead, and I can do nothing for you." One night, at the old Vincent street armory, the man who was to speak at a Democratic meeting was late, and "Sir William Heisley," as they called him, happened to step into the hall, when certain people in the audience began to call out, "Heisler, Heisley, speech, speech !" The presiding officer stepped to the front of the platform and said, "Will our friend, Mr. Heisley, step to the platform ?" "Bill" went up. "Ladies and gentlemen," said the presiding officer, "I have the pleasure 18 - The Bench and Bar of Northern Ohio of presenting to you our venerable friend, Sir William Heisley, who will now speak to you." "Bill" arose, very solemnly, and came forward and said, "I don't like that word, 'venerable.' Now," he said, "it is currently reported in this community that I am 177 years old. There is no truth in the statement. The fact is, ladies and gentlemen, I am only 144." There was a lawyer, whose name was Sullivan. I think it was John Sullivan. Across the hall from his office was the office of Tom Lavin. They had a case before a justice of the peace. They were on opposite sides, and one day Sullivan's client happened to go into Lavin's office, and he was utterly appalled and amazed by the number of books that Lavin had. The walls of his office were literally plastered with law books. He went over into Sullivan's office, and saw no books, at all. He said, "Mr. Sullivan, how is this? I go into Tom Lavin's office and there I see hundreds, hundreds of books. I come into your office and I don't see a damned book. How is this ?" Sullivan replied, in this manner. I don't know where he got it. I don't know whether it was original ; I never saw it in print anywhere. "I pluck me quill from the goose's wing, and with me knife I carve me pen, and with me pen I write me law !" Speaking of original expressions, there was a lawyer by the name of Porter, who was defending a woman who was resisting payment of a real estate commission, and while he was seeking to impress the jury with the fact that the plaintiff was a sharper who was taking undue advantage of this helpless woman, he used this expression (where he got it, I don't know) : "Ah," he said, "gentlemen, this plaintiff is a dandy tap him, and he runs sand bore him and he runs saw-dust." Judge Jones was a very irascible, quick, percussive, little Welshman, a very bright lawyer, and a capital judge—but very irritable. Soon after he retired from the common pleas bench he took desk room in the office of Foran & Dawley, in the Blackstone building, and they had the only telephone in the building. Across the hall, Sol Schwab had his office. Judge Noble was sitting in court room No. 5, and lie said to his bailiff, Sam Brown, "Mr. Bailiff, I wish you would notify Sol Schwab that I would like for him to come into court, at once." Sam, intending that his head should save his heels, remembered Foran & Dawley, just across the hall from Schwab's office, had a telephone ; so he went to the telephone, called up Foran & Dawley's office, and Judge Jones, happening to be the only one in, went to the phone. The bailiff said, "Is this Foran & Dawley's office ?" "Yes." "Well, can you step across the hall and tell Sol Schwab that Judge Noble would like to have him come into court, at once ?" "Yes, I can—but I'll be damned if I will," and he rang off. He could, all right. I will never forget another occasion. Judge Jones came into court with a new plug hat, and being in a great hurry, somewhat late, he rushed over with that plug, tried, in a very violent way, to put it over a peg, and, of course, it fell to the floor, and he pulled back his foot and kicked it clear across the room, uttering a terrific oath—his own plug hat ! To go outside of our particular bailiwick, Judge David Davis, whom Lincoln afterward appointed associate justice of the supreme court of the United States, was holding common pleas court, out in Illinois, when Lincoln, "the sweetest memory of the century," as "Bob" Ingersoll The Bench and Bar of Northern Ohio - 19 called him, came into the court room, walked over to the clerk's desk, leaned over the clerk, and told him a story. It was so funny that the clerk went into convulsions, and guffawed in such a boisterous way as to disturb the proceedings of the court. When silence had been sufficiently restored for the judge to do it, he said, "Mr. Clerk, you may enter up a fine against yourself of $10 for contempt of court.' When the court adjourned, at noon, Judge Davis said to the clerk, "What was that story that 'Abe' told you ?" The clerk told him. The judge simply went into convulsions, and when he could get himself in a condition where he could speak, he said, "You may erase that entry." Helen Nicolay, whose father, in collaboration with John Hay, wrote the completest life of Lincoln that we have, says that when Lincoln would get a new story he would tell it, and at another opportunity would tell it again, but would vary it somewhat. Finally, when he would get it to suit him exactly, after that, he would tell that story the same way ; showing that Lincoln, although a perfect master of the art of telling stories, would practice upon his stories until he got them perfect. I cannot resist the temptation of saying that the art of telling a story effectively is to reserve the crucial word to the very last. Hobbes, the old English philosopher, says that "laughter" is a sudden sense of eminence coming to us ; we discover the point, suddenly, and, in our own self-gratulation, we break into laughter." Now let me illustrate, by a single example, a story that I heard John B. Gough tell, more than forty years ago, while I was in college. A farmer had a very eccentric hired man, who was always doing strange things. One morning the farmer went out to the barn, and there he saw the hired man had hung himself ; and he said, "Well, what on earth will that fellow do next? That illustrates the art of telling a story. The point of a joke should be a sudden flash, like the spark from a flint. John B. Gough was the finest master of that art, with the possible exception of Tom Corwin, we have ever had in this country. He was a consummate master of facial expression. I once saw "Alf" Burnett, the elocutionist, laugh on one side of his face and cry on the other side, at the same time. Tom Corwin could literally do that, so mobile were his features. The French actress, Rachel, in playing a certain role, would stand up before an audience and the tears would run down her cheeks. Somebody asked her how she could do that. "Why," she said, "there are certain tones of my voice that always make me cry, and when I utter those tones I can't help crying." Henry Clay had a marvelous voice. It was the real secret of his tremendous power as a popular speaker. He had a voice of such compass and power and music that John Randolph, the eccentric senator from Virginia, who had been his political enemy for thirty years, when he was being taken back to Roanoke, Virginia, to die, as he passed through the city of Washington, rose, partly, from his couch and said, "Those lips ! those lips ! the most eloquent that speak the English language in my day ! That voice ! that voice ! I want to hear that voice again before I die !"—referring to the voice of Henry Clay. The richest voice I have ever heard was that of Lawrence Barrett. It combined a quality of music, with compass, and power, that was 20 - The Bench and Bar of Northern Ohio almost marvelous ; rich, sonorous, mellifluous. It was "musical as is Apollo's lute, strung with his hair." The criminal court room, in the court house, on Seneca street, had a very high ceiling and dome, the dome filled with frescoes, and a magnificent chandelier. During the trial of the Moran case, which occupied a whole month, I was arguing a question of the admissibility of certain evidence, to Judge Stone. Mr. Dawley, who was very short of stature, standing near a very large cuspidor, turned to me, disgustedly, and said, "Awe, you talk to the chandelier." I said, "Yes, Mr. Dawley ; you talk to the spittoon." Dawley often told me that ought to go into a book. A man was arrested for shooting a policeman, and was indicted on a charge of shooting with intent to kill. As soon as the jury were sworn, Judge Babcock leaned across the table and said, "Neff, I have got you." "How is that, 'Bab'," I said. "Well," he said, "you will see, presently." The bullet struck the large brass buckle of the belt which the policeman wore, struck it so hard that it left a red spot, directly under it, but the bullet did not penetrate the skin. Babcock claimed to Judge Sherwood that inasmuch as the missile did not penetrate the body of the policeman, the utmost that could be done would be to convict the defendant of assault and battery. Judge Sherwood so held, but when he sentenced him he gave him the full extent of the law ; and, when he did that, I went up and whispered to the judge, and said, "Judge, you didn't shoot at him—you shot him !" "Bob" Avery, as we called him, had many cases in criminal court, and was, on one occasion, defending a colored man who was charged with picking a woman's pocket, just at night-fall. I said to him, " 'Bob,' I can tell you how you can win your case and clear your man." "Why," he said, "I would like to know that." "Well," I said, "now, suppose you have Same Moore and his colored quartette sit up in the gallery ; you go on and enlarge to the jury upon the uncertainty of evidence of identification, in general, and of the difficulty and almost impossibility of identifying a colored man in twilight. Then, at a given signal, strike a highly dramatic attitude, and pause, and in that pause, let Sam Moore and his colored quartette rise up and sing, 'All coons look alike to me !' and you will win your case." I had a case in criminal court, many years ago, that smacked very strongly of the Arabian Nights. My client represented to a woman on the west side that he was a magician ; that, as the implements of his office, he had his twin brother in a bottle of alcohol, an ox-tail cane, and that, by adjusting a key to the text of the Scripture, "I say unto you, Lazarus, arise," he could not only locate, but could secure buried treasure ; that, 100 years ago, or more, a Spanish galleon was hotly pursued by a British vessel, near the mouth of the Cuyahoga river ; that in the Spanish galleon there was $100,000,000 of minted Spanish gold ; being hotly pursued, and realizing that they could not escape, they scuttled the ship, hurriedly took the treasure out of its hold, and hastened over to the west side, but, seeing then that they were still pursued, they buried the treasure "in your back yard." "But it can be gotten out, only at the stroke of midnight, on the 25th of August." So, on the 25th of August, just as the clock struck the midnight hour, they went out into the yard ; he shook his twin brother, in the bottle of alcohol, he twirled his ox-tail cane, he adjusted his key to the Scripture, and The Bench and Bar of Northern Ohio - 21 then he went on pronouncing a Spanish incantation. All at once he stopped. "Oh, that's too bad," he said. "We are checkmated, at last, for the devil sits cross-legged over the money, and refuses to get off, unless we pay him $550.00. I haven't got the money." "Neither have I," said she. "Oh, but you own this property ?" "Yes." So, next morning, they came over to Wick's bank and borrowed the $550.00. She gave it to him, and he skipped to Milwaukee. He was indicted, extradited, tried, and it took the jury just six minutes to convict him. Hon. Martin A. Foran, now upon our common pleas bench, represented this district in Congress for three terms. I remember that, one morning, a half tipsy Irishman, passing Southworth's store, could no longer restrain his enthusiasm, and he burst out into "Hurrah ! hurrah ! for Martin A. Foran, for he's the friend of the working man." While in Congress, Mr. Foran wrote a letter to "Dick" O'Rourke, who was one of his political managers. The letter puzzled Dick, as he began to read it. It was a very learned dissertation upon economics, generally, and in the first sentence of it he struck "social statics." "Ah, divil take ye, Martin," says "Dick" "what is 'social statics' ? I have got Tom and Jerry, I have got Holland gin, and Manhattan cocktails, but divil a drop have I got of the strange mixed drink you call—what is it? 'social statics' ? And, begorra, here's this 'Industrial Dynamics.' Ah, the divil fly away wid ye, Martin ! where did ye ever hear of that new drink ?" So, he called the office boy, and he said, "Hurry down to Weideman's and get two bottles of 'Social Statics,' and two bottles of 'Industrial Dynamics,' because, as soon as the boys read this letter they will be rushing in here for it, and divil a drop will I have of ayther of thim." Kline & Goff were once defending in a case where a poor fellow had had both of his feet taken off. An engine, left unattended in the yards, started out on its own account, went down the track, and came into collision with a train, and caused the accident. Mr. Goff was cross-examining the first of plaintiff's witnesses, and on the jury there was a colored man by the name of Milligan, and he sat just two chairs away from the witness stand. The witness had made a statement to the defendant, and Goff confronted him with the statement, and compelled him to admit that he had made a statement which was contrary to what he was testifying to on the stand. Goff struck a dramatic attitude, and he stood not more than two feet away from the colored man, and he said, "Well, there ! we have chased that nigger out of the wood pile !" Well, the silence was so intense you could feel it. Nobody breathed for two or three minutes. Finally, Virgil P. Kline came around to the bench and said, "Judge, I have practiced law for thirty years, but I'll be damned if I ever made such a break as that." Newton D. Baker, now secretary of war, was defending a prisoner in the criminal court. An old spinster, who was on the off side of sixty, hideous old creature, who, when she tried to smile and look pleasant, was simply ghastly, was under cross-examination by Mr. Baker, and he tried the fortiter in re severe method of cross-examination, but made little headway. Finally he thought he would change his tactics. Mr. Baker was then unmarried, and an eligible bachelor. He began to try the softer methods, the suaviter in modo, and he smiled very genially, and kept that up, and finally he said, "Madam, you never have been married ?" "No, sir but, judging by the winsome way in 22 - The Bench and Bar of Northern Ohio which you have been smiling at me, I shouldn't be at all surprised if 1 received a proposal in the very near future." Well, it brought down the house. Not long ago, a woman came from the Hay Market region who was seeking a divorce on the ground of desertion. During the recital of her tale of woe, she turned to me, very confidentially, and said, "Judge, that man didn't love me. He married me for my money, and when he got that he deserted me." I said, "How much money did you have ?" "Six dollars, your Honor." "Oh." I said, "the mercenary wretch !" and gave her a divorce. I saw in the paper, some time ago, in a legal publication, what I regard as the best pun that I have ever seen. An old Irishwoman went into a lawyer's office and said, "I want to get a divorce from my husband, Patrick." The lawyer took down the statutes, and read : "Drunkenness ?" "No, Patrick doesn't get drunk." "Extreme cruelty ?" "No, Patrick doesn't beat me." "Incompatibility ?" "Begorra," she said, `that's it—incompatibility. Pat never had any ability to bring an income." We had an eccentric old gentleman, whom we called Squire Colby. He had long, white hair, a long beard, which, as Goldsmith says, "low descending, swept his aged breast," and he was a character, indeed. He could have taken Joe Jefferson's place, without any makeup at all, and nobody would have discovered the difference. He came into my office one day and said, "Neff, I can prove to you, by the Bible, that women don't go to heaven." I said. "Squire, to your proofs." "Well," he said, "if you will open your Bible, at Revelations, you will see that when the seventh seal was broken, that there was silence in heaven for the space of half an hour." I said, "Squire, you have made your case." Squire went with a client over to the west side to have a woman sign a deed that her husband hail executed. When they got there, she declined to sign, unless her husband would promise to get her a silk dress—which he very promptly and emphatically refused to do ; whereupon they got into a row, and in the course of the engagement she grabbed a broom stick and went at him, and he took refuge under a table, and she, jabbing him with the broom stick, said, "Come out of there! come out of there !" "Madam," he said, "I won't come out ; I'll show you who is the boss of this house." The old law required that in taking an acknowledgment of a married woman to a deed, or mortgage, the notary or justice should certify that he had examined the wife, separate and apart from the husband, and that, upon such examination, she acknowledged the deed to be her free act and deed. This was to preclude any possibility of coercion by the husband. An old justice of the peace, having no blanks, and being called suddenly to write out a deed, did very well. He got the habendum clause, and other clauses, all right, but he made a slip when he came to the acknowledgment. After certifying the general acknowledgment, he said, "And I do further certify that I did take the said Mary Jones apart and examine her, separately." Judge Dustin, of Dayton, told me that an old farmer in his neighborhood was elected justice of the peace, and the very first case he had involved .a question under the federal constitution ; but he took it under advisement, and finally decided it. The case was carried further, clear through the state courts, to the supreme court of the United States. The Bench and Bar of Northern Ohio - 23 Three years after its trial before the justice, one of the lawyers went into the justice's office and said, "Well, Squire, I see that the supreme court of the United States has decided that case," naming the case, "and," he said, "do you know, they decided just as you did?" "Well," he said, "it makes no difference ; I still think I was right." I think the best charge I have ever read was delivered by a justice of the peace, out west, somewhere. He said, "Gentlemen of the jury, this is an action brought for the recovery of the sum of $300.00, for the sale of a certain device. Now, gentlemen of the jury, if you find that the device in question was a device for tanning skins, you will return a verdict for plaintiff ; but if, on the contrary, you should find that the device in question is a device for skinning tanners, you will return a verdict for the defendant." When the Dorsey case was on, in Washington, a friend of Bob Ingersoll wrote : "Dear Bob : I think you are doing wrong in defending the Dorsey's, because I know they are guilty." Bob sat down and wrote, acknowledging receipt of the letter, and saying : "You have told me what I ought to do ; now, let me tell you what I think you ought to do. Inasmuch as you know that the Dorseys are guilty, you ought to come down here' and tender your evidence to the government." About a week after that he got a letter from his friend, which was very short, but very expressive : "Dear Bob : I am a damned fool." I met an old gentleman, some years ago, in New York. We called him Major Tyler. Incidentally, he happened to remark that he had heard Rufus Choate address a jury. I said to him, "Now, Major, sit right down here and tell me about that. You are the first man I have ever met who ever heard Rufus Choate." "Well," he said, "I went into the court-house, in Boston, one day. A lawyer was speaking, and presently that lawyer sat down, when a rather tall and very slender, dark-complexioned man arose, and I noticed that he had very piercing eyes. His hair was very black, and hung in ringlets almost down to his shoulders. He had long, bony hands. When he rose he stepped right over to the foreman, and with that long, skinny forefinger, held it almost under the nose of the juror, and said, 'Free on board delivery' ; and he went from juror to juror, repeating that, holding that index finger close up to the face of the juror, and when he had got through, he had hypnotized that jury to such an extent that, as he moved, they followed him with their eyes." He acquitted a man once on the ground of somnambulism, and after he had secured the acquittal of the defendant, of a murder charge, they said, "Choate somnambulized the jury." It is unfortunate, however, that none of his speeches at the bar have been preserved. We have only traditions, and they are very meager. His argument in the Rhode Island boundary case is interesting, but it has little of the flash or fire or genius of Choate, because it was inadequately reported, but there is one thing in the report that is entirely worthy of him. Speaking of the uncertainty of the boundaries of Rhode Island, he said, "As well might we say, `beginning at a hole in the middle of a twenty-acre field, thence southwesterly to a blue-jay on the fence, thence by a line described by 40,000 foxes with firebrands tied to their tails." Choate was a man of undoubted genius. He went with his daughter to attend an opera. He said to his daughter, "Read the libretto, please, lest I dilate to the wrong emotion." 24 - The Bench and Bar of Northern Ohio He had a very nervous, quick, magnetic delivery. Wendell Phillips once likened his style to that of a monkey in convulsions, but Wendell Phillips was a master of satire, and said the most clever, brilliant things that has ever been spoken, I think, in the way of satire, in this country. Speaking of Wm. H. Seward, who was a consummate politician, he said, "Seward is like the celebrated Blade of Toledo, the temper of whose steel was so fine that it could be thrust into a cork-screw scabbard without breaking." A delicate piece of sarcasm. I read an incident, connected with Webster's great Reply to Hayne, not long since, when the brilliant young southerner, only about thirty-five years old, arose and delivered that terrific arraignment of Massachusetts. Of course, the whole discussion was beside the subject-matter of the resolution which was under consideration, but Hayne made, as I say, an onslaught upon Massachusetts, and it threw the whigs into dismay. Webster was not present. On the evening of that day, a committee, headed by Edward Everett, waited upon Mr. Webster, and Everett tells the story. He says they found Mr. Webster in his room, and he had apparently been drinking. He says, "I said to him, 'Mr. Webster, a crisis is on in the history of the Whig party. The speech of Senator Hayne must be answered, and we have agreed that you are the man to answer it.' " "Well," he says, "Webster treated the subject with great levity. He told some stories of rather doubtful character, laughed and joked, and did not seem to be penetrated by any very acute sense of the crisis, as we felt it to be. 'Oh,' he says, 'Gentlemen, I think you exaggerate the importance of that speech, and the necessity of its being answered ; but, however, if you think I ought to reply to it, I will do so in the morning.'" He says, "The committee left Mr. Webster, very much disgusted, feeling that he did not appreciate the gravity of the situation, but next, morning, when 'Black Dan' came downtown, with his accustomed buff vest and blue coat, which always meant a speech, we began to feel reassured, and he rose very solemnly and delivered that wonderful masterpiece, his Reply to Hayne." Senator Everett says, "After a few days, I met Mr. Webster. I said, 'Mr. Webster, why did you treat our committee with so much levity when we waited on you ?"Why,' he said, 'Senator, I had been studying that subject for more than forty years. If, in the light of forty years' study, I was still unable to answer that argument, is it conceivable, sir, that I could have made any preparation over night that would have prepared me to reply to it ?' " Looking back over the course of forty years of experience, both as a lawyer and as a judge, I am convinced that, almost without exception, the men who have practiced law at this bar have succeeded according to the measure of their ability, industry and integrity. This, I imagine, is something which can be said of very few professions or walks of life. The profession is eminently just, to those who engage in it, and the courts perform an indispensable function in the affairs of the state. I happened to get into a discussion with some ministers, some years ago, and we were discussing the relative benefits resulting from the activities of the ministry and the bar, including, of course, the courts. I said to them, this, and it seemed radical, and rather startled them, at the time ; I said, "Gentlemen, we could close all the churches in Cleveland for six months, and Cleveland would go on very much the