felicitous citation, such an occasion, for example, as that of the bar-meeting in New York on the withdrawal of the late Chief-Justice Charles P. Daly from the bench of the Common Pleas. After more than forty years of judicial service, he was the victim of that provision of the constitution of New York which retires a judge at the age of seventy; "God Almighty's statute of limitations," in the phrase of Elisha Williams, having run against him. Judge Daly was a member of the convention of 1867 which framed this very provision. William Allen Butler, in his address at the farewell gathering, referred to the fact with the remark that the venerable jurist, in thus decreeing his compulsory exile from the bench, Viewed his own feather on the fatal dart, The Supreme Court of the United States is the most solemn tribunal known to man, and the preternatural dignity of its members, when in session, is suggestive of the Appellate Division of the lower world-Minos, Æacus, and Rhadamanthus. It is believed that the justices smiled one day when the author of "Nothing to Wear" had been endeavoring to convince them that a provision in an insurance policy was available for the company, but could not be invoked by the assured. His opponent slyly remarked: "The learned counsel reminds me of the words of an American poet, when he makes Miss Flora McFlimsey say to her affianced: 'This is the sort of engagement, you see, Which is binding on you, but not binding on me.' He then proceeded to contend that in a previous decision against him the court was wholly wrong. When a reply was in order, Mr. Butler observed that counsel had seen fit to allude to a minor poet, but that, in view of the line of argument adopted by his adversary, he was disposed to refer him to the great English poet who rejoiced in the same name, and who said, in "Hudibras": He that complies against his will This legal divarication somehow reminds me of Counsellor Thomas Nolan, of the New York bar, who has had a little book devoted to his sayings. It is called The Barrister, and is adorned with a portrait which resembles Nolan about as much as it does George Washington. I regret to say that many of the stories about the giant counsellor are apocryphal, some of them having been told of lawyers ever since the Flood. Nolan was what is called "a character," like George the Count Joannes, and Henry H. Morange, the ex-barber Whitlegge, old George Niles -who said that "he always tried to live within the Revised Statutes "--and others whom we elderly lawyers well remember. One of us was asked the other day, "What has become of the characters of our bar?" and my friend, a philosopher and a sage, replied, "I suppose we are the characters now." To my personal knowledge Tom Nolan once addressed a jury of his countrymen in these words: "Ay, gentlemen of the jury, and thereby hangs a tale. Every hair upon that tail bristles with significance." I see him now, with his tophat and his double-breasted frock-coat, stalking in stately fashion down Broadway, one of the few who kept the modern lawyer in an atmosphere of solemn dignity. Most of us are only capable of imitating the lofty air of chauffeurs. While I am on the subject of lawyers, I am reminded of an incident which, perhaps, is founded on fact, although most bar anecdotes are of doubtful authenticity. You will find many of them in Mr. Willock's Legal Facetiæ, published in 1887, and they are reproduced with small additions as anecdotes of living lawyers. It is amusing to see, as in Nolan's case, the old stock stories revived from time to time and ascribed to jurists of the present day. It is said that a tall, raw-boned lawyer from the Pacific coast opened his argument before the Supreme Court in this way: "May it please the court, this is an appeal from an oral decision handed down by the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit." The keen eye of the late Mr. Justice Gray was upon him, and the well-known accents of the late Mr. Justice Gray's voice rang out with a "had-himthere" intonation. "Handed down? An oral decision handed down? How is that possible?" Well, your honor," drawled the unabashed advocate, " you see, it was so weak they couldn't get it down any other way." Mr. Butler, whose distinguished career ended in September, 1902, was probably the last survivor of those who saw John Marshall presiding in the Supreme Court. It was the last term in which the illustrious chief-justice took part. Mr. Butler, a lad of nine, accompanied his father, Benjamin F. Butler (Jackson's AttorneyGeneral), and William Wirt to the court-room, and saw the justices take down their robes from the pegs, place them upon their august forms, and march in solemn procession to their seats on the bench. The room is now used as a library and consultation chamber, and the robing is accomplished in private instead of in the courtroom itself. There are certain conventional remarks which we are sure to find repeated whenever particular subjects are mentioned. For example, when Mr. Butler died, every journal in the land devoted considerable space to "Nothing to Wear," and one of them was moved to declare, with erroneous judgment, that the celebrated poem was the only thing which made him known to any except to his intimate associates; whereas his fame as a lawyer was, with those whose approval is of any value, of the highest order. Of course, the writer felt himself called upon to allude to "SingleSpeech Hamilton" and to Philip James Bailey's "Festus." In like manner, the name of Aaron Burr invariably leads to reflections on duelling, and that of Thomas Dunn English to reminiscences of "Ben Bolt." Of recent years it has become the fashion to parade a list of the clubs to which a man belongs. If he dies, or is married, or has anything happen to him of equal importance, the inevitable club schedule follows his name. Even when a watermain burst not long ago in front of the house of a wealthy person, the newspapers hastened to tell us that he was a member of the Century, the University, the Metropolitan, and all the rest of it. The pertinency of the information is not very apparent. Somebody once bought a share of stock in the Chemical Bank because he thought it would give an air of distinction to the inventory of his estate; and a similar motive |