Memoirs of Orange Jacobs Part 1

Memoirs of Orange Jacobs.

by Orange Jacobs.

Introduction

I have often been requested by my friends to write a sketch book, containing, first, my autobiography, with some of the incidents of a life already numbering eighty years and more; secondly, some of the addresses and papers made by me as a private citizen or public official; and, thirdly, some of the impressions, solemn, ludicrous and otherwise, made upon me in my contact with all the forms of the _genus h.o.m.o_, princ.i.p.ally on the Pacific Coast, where I have resided since 1852--in Oregon for seventeen years; in Seattle, Was.h.i.+ngton, thirty-eight years, plus the dimming future.

I have finally concluded to undertake the delicate task. If it is ever completed and printed, I fondly hope its readers, if any, may be interested, if not instructed, by these extracts from a long experience of contact and conflict with the world.

I say "conflict," because every true life is a battle for financial independence, social position and the general approval of one's fellow-men.

If an autobiography could be completed by an accurate and simple statement of facts, such as one's birth, education and the prominent and distinguis.h.i.+ng events or acts of one's career, it would be a comparatively easy task. But, even then, too great modesty might incline to dim the l.u.s.tre of the paramount facts, or to narrow their beneficence; while a dominating egotism might overstate their merits and extent, and exaggerate their beneficial results. Both of these are to be avoided. But where is the man so calm, so dispa.s.sionate and discriminating as to avoid the engulfing breakers on either hand? If there could be an impartial statement of the facts I have suggested, still they would be but a veil encompa.s.sing the real man. The true man would but dimly appear by implication. Character, that invisible ent.i.ty, like the soul, const.i.tutes the true man. Any biography that does not develop the traits, the qualities, of this invisible ent.i.ty is of no value. Character is complex and compound. It consists of those tendencies, inclinations, bents and impulses which come down through the line of descent and become an integral part of the man, and are therefore const.i.tutional. These are enlarged and strengthened, or curbed and diminished or modified, by education, environment and religious belief. Education possesses no creative power. It acts only on the faculties G.o.d has given. It draws them out, enlarges and strengthens them--increases their scope and power--and gives them greater breadth and deeper penetration. By education I do not mean the knowledge derived from books alone, for Nature is a great teacher and educator. The continuous woods, the sunless canyon, the ascending ridges and mountain peaks, as well as the sunlit and flower-bestrewn dells and valleys--in fact all of the beautiful and variegated scenes in Nature--possess an educational force and power very much, in my judgment, underestimated.

Man's emotional nature is enlarged--his taste for the beautiful quickened--and his love for the grand and sublime broadened and deepened by frequent intercourse with Nature. Byron felt this when he wrote

"There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely sh.o.r.e, There is society, where none intrudes, By the deep sea, and music in its roar: I love not man the less, but Nature more, From these, our interviews, in which I steal From all I may be, or have been before, To mingle with the Universe, and feel What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal."

I have mentioned environment above. It is not only a restraining and quasi-licensing, but also an educational force. There are, I fear, in every community, especially on the Pacific Coast, many young persons, who, lacking in fixed moral principles and habits of life like the sensitive and impressionable chameleon, a.s.suming the color of the bark on the tree which for a time is its home--take on the moral coloring of the society in which they move, and become for a time, at least, an embodiment of its moral tone. But let the conditions change--let such persons migrate and become residents of a society of darker moral hue and of lower moral tone--and, like the chameleon, they almost immediately take on the darkened coloring and echo the lower tone. If it is their nature to command, they become leaders in a career of a.s.sociated viciousness or infamously distinguished in the line of individual criminality. The general result is, however, that having broken loose from their moral moorings, they drift as hopeless, purposeless wrecks on the sea of life.

During my residence on the Pacific Coast I have known many sad instances of this degeneration, and our own beautiful and prosperous city has not been free from such sad examples. It is a true, if not an inspired saying that "evil communications corrupt good manners." It is more emphatically true that evil a.s.sociations corrupt good morals, which was probably the meaning intended by the translators.

I have mentioned religious belief as an element in the formation of character. The doctrine of no religious teacher has ever exercised such a dominating and controlling force in the formation of character in the civilized world, as have the doctrines of Christ. Before His advent the learned world received the philosophy of Aristotle, as a sufficient basis of moral doctrine and civic virtue. But that philosophy, great as it was, and impinging as it often did on the domain of absolute truth, has as a system of moral conduct, given way or been subordinated to the clear, direct yet simple enunciation of Christ, summed up in that grand and universally applicable rule of individual and civil conduct: "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you." A character in which this doctrine forms the basis will always respond to the demands of honor and right.

These observations must answer as a preface, or, as Horace Greely once styled such performances, as "preliminary egotism."

Autobiography

I was born in the Genesee Valley, Livingstone County, State of New York, on the second day of May, A. D. 1827. I was number two of a family of eight children,--six boys and two girls. My mother, while not in the popular sense an educated woman, having but a common-school education, had, as the philosopher Hobbes termed it, a large amount of "round-about common-sense." While she gave, as a religious mother, her a.s.sent to Solomon's declaration that he who spares the rod spoils the child, it was only in the most flagrant instances of disobedience that she put the doctrine in practice. She was firm, consistent, and truthful, indulging in no unfulfilled threats or promises of punishment in case of non-compliance with her orders. In fact, she acted upon the principle that certainty and not severity of punishment was the preventative of disobedience. Her all-prevailing governing power was affection--love,--thus exemplifying the teaching of the Master that "he who loveth Me keeps My commandments." I say it now, after eighty years of memory, that we obeyed her because we loved her. She has gone to her reward. My observation and experience is that the mother's influence over her sons, if she be a true and affectionate mother, is far stronger than that of the father. Her love is ever present in the conflict of life; it remains as an enduring and restraining force against evil, and a powerful impulse in favor of honor and right. Someone has said that there are but three words of beauty in the English language: "Mother, Home, Heaven."

My father owned a farm of forty acres in the Genesee Valley, and I first saw the light of day in a plain but comfortable frame house. Back of it, and between two and three rods from it, quietly ran in a narrow channel a flower-strewn and almost gra.s.s-covered spring brook, whose clear and pure waters, about a foot in depth, were used for domestic and farm purposes. I mention this brook because connected with it is my first memory. I fell into that brook one day when I was about three years old, and would have drowned had it not been for the timely arrival of my mother. As the years advanced, observation extended, experience increased and enlarged, and I became a parent myself, I have often considered how many children would have reached manhood or womanhood's estate wanting the almost divine affection and ceaseless vigilance of a mother's love.

The next circ.u.mstance in my life distinctly remembered occurred some two or three months after the water-incident stated above. Running and romping through the kitchen one day, I tripped and fell, striking my forehead on the sharp edge of a skillet, making a wound over an inch in length and cutting to the bone. The profuse flow of blood alarmed me; but my mother, who was not at all a nervous woman but calm, thoughtful and resourceful in the presence of difficulties, soon staunched the flow of blood and drew the bleeding lips of the gaping wound together. The doctor soon after added his skill; then Nature intervened; and, to use the stately language of court, the incident, as well as the wound, was closed.

I have stated these two events not as very important factors in the history of a life, but because they ill.u.s.trate the teaching of mental philosophy, that memory's power of retention and in individual's ability to recall any particular fact depends upon the intensity of emotion attending that fact or event. Especially is this true of our youth and early manhood, when our emotional nature is active, vigorous and strong.

In after years our emotional nature is not so active and not so readily aroused; still it exists, a latent but potent factor in memory's domain.

Given the requisite intensity, it will still write in indelible characters the history of events on the tablets of memory.

Memory is of two kinds--local and philosophical. Local memory is the ability to retain and recall isolated and non-a.s.sociated facts. The vast ma.s.s of early facts acc.u.mulated in memory's store-house rests upon this emotional principle. As the years increase and the mind matures, other principles become purveyors for that store-house. The laws of cla.s.sification and a.s.sociation become in after years the efficient agencies of the cultivated mind to furnish the data for reflection and generalization. The operation of these laws const.i.tutes philosophic memory. But such facts have no pathos,--no coloring. The recalled facts of our youthful days have a thrill in them; not always of joy, sometimes of sorrow. I must, however, dismiss these imperfect thoughts on mental philosophy, and return to autobiography.

My father, not being satisfied with his forty-acre farm, in the Genesee Valley, but being desirous of more extended land dominion, and inflamed with the glowing description of the fertile prairie and wooded plains in Southern Michigan, made a trip to that territory in the summer of 1831 and purchased in St. Joseph County two tracts of land of 160 acres each--one being on what was afterwards called Sturgis Prairie; the other, in what was known as the Burr Oak Openings. St. Joseph County, now one of the most populous in that great State, then had less than two hundred people within its large domain. Near the center of the prairie, which contained five or six sections of land, there were four or five log houses--the nucleus of a thriving town now existing there. There was also quite a pretentious block-house, manifesting the existence of the fear that the perfidious savage,--like the felon wolf,--might at any time commence the dire work of conflagration and ma.s.sacre. There were many Indians in that section of the country. They belonged to the then numerous and powerful tribe called the Pottawattomies. Southern Michigan is a level and low country, abounding in small and deep lakes and sluggish streams. These lakes and streams were literally filled with edible fish. Deer and wild turkeys, also the prairie chicken, pheasant and quail, were abundant. Strawberries, cherries, grapes, plums, pawpaws and crabapples--as well as hazelnuts, hickory nuts, black walnuts and b.u.t.ternuts--were everywhere in the greatest profusion in the woodlands.

It was a paradise for Indian habitation. I cannot omit from this a slight digression--the statement that, having lived on the frontier most of my life and having become acquainted with many Indian tribes, their habits and customs, they do not, like the tiger, or many white men, slaughter just for the love of slaughtering, but for food and clothing, alone; hence, game was always plentiful in an Indian country. The buffalo, those n.o.ble roamers over the plains, and which a century or less ago, existed in almost countless numbers, have nearly disappeared.

The destructive fury and remorseless cupidity of the white man have done their work. The indian and the buffalo could and would, judging by the past, have co-existed forever. Now the doom of annihilation awaits them both.

In the spring of 1832 we started for our new home in the wilds of Michigan. Our outfit consisted of a wagon loaded with household goods and provisions--two yoke of oxen and a brood mare of good stock. We reached our destination in a little over a month. I say "we" and "our"

because I wish it to be understood that I took my father and mother and elder brother along with me to our western home, for I thought that they might be useful there. I distinctly remember but two incidents of that journey; of not much importance, however, in the veracious history of a life. I became bankrupt in the loss of a jack-knife that a confiding friend had given me on the eve of our departure, with which I might successfully whittle my way through to the land of promise. I was inconsolable for a time. I had lost my all. My father, to alleviate my grief, promised me another. So true is it that faith in a promise, whether human or divine, a.s.suages grief, lifts the darkening cloud, and often opens up a fountain of joy.

We had to cross Lake Erie on our journey. The not over-palatial floating palace in which we embarked was struck by a storm. She pitched and rolled and lurched in the tumbling and foaming waters. The pa.s.sengers, save myself and some of the crew, as I was informed, lurched and foamed at the mouth in unison with the turbulent waves.

I was confined, for fear I might be pitched over-board; but I felt no inclination to join in the general upheaval. Since that time I have journeyed much on the lakes and on the ocean, in calm and in storm, but have ever been immune from that distressing torture.

We arrived at our destination on the first of June. There was no house or building of any kind on the land purchased by my father. By the kindly invitation and permission of a Mr. Parker, a pioneer in that country, we were permitted for the time being, to transform his wood-shed into a living abode. My father immediately commenced the cutting and the hauling of logs for a habitation of our own; but before he had completed the work he was summoned to join forces then moving westward for the subjugation of Blackhawk and the hostile tribes confederated under him, who were then waging a ruthless war on the settlers of Illinois. Any signal success by this wily chieftain, and his confederate forces might, and probably would, have vastly increased the area of conflict and conflagration. Indian fidelity as a general rule, is a very uncertain quant.i.ty. There are, I am glad to say, many n.o.ble individual exceptions, but perfidy is the general trait. Vigorous action was taken by the Government for the subjugation of the hostile tribes and for the capture of Blackhawk. This was accomplished in the early summer of 1832.

On the morning after my father's departure I accompanied my mother to a spring about a quarter of a mile from Mr. Parker's house, where we obtained water for domestic purposes. Mr. Parker's house was on the southern edge of the prairie which was fringed by a thick growth of hazel, sumach, plums, crabapples, wild cherries and fox grapes. This fringe was narrow and only extended back from two to four rods--beyond which was the open timber. The trail to the spring was in the open timber, but close to the inner circle of the copse. Nearing the spring, we saw, skulking near the outer edge of this thicket fringe, five Pottawattomie warriors. They seemed to be somewhat agitated and were intently observing the movements of the white soldiers and listening to the roll of the drum and the call of the bugle. My mother hesitated at first, but went on to the spring, and, having filled her pails with water, we went back with quickened steps to the house. Shortly after, these warriors came to the house. Mr. Parker, who imperfectly understood their language, succeeded, however, in explaining to them the meaning of this martial array, and they left, seemingly well satisfied. We saw them frequently afterwards and often purchased from them choice venison, turkey and other game birds, as well as fish, for a mere trifle. But those were troublous days and full of dire apprehension to the lone settler. Every night a few, princ.i.p.ally old men, would gather at Mr.

Parker's house, and when the door was closed and securely fastened, the light extinguished, the few men would lay down with their loaded rifles by their side. The door was not opened in the morning until a careful reconnoissance had been made through the port-holes, of the surrounding country. Apprehension has in it as much of terror as actual danger. The one is continuing--the other but momentary, and the one usually increases in its fervor, while the other disappears with its cause.

My father returned after an absence of about two months. He won no military glory--he saw no hostile indians--Blackhawk and his confederates having surrendered before the hostile country was reached by the command to which my father belonged.

Peace having been secured and confidence restored, father proceeded diligently in the erection and completion of a double log house on his own domain.

I love to think of that old log house with its hewed puncheon floors and thick oaken doors, where my youth was spent. It was a home of peace, of comfort, of plenty and prosperity. Its site was a beautiful one on a knoll near the great military road leading from Detroit to Chicago, and about midway between those cities. The next spring my father, my older brother and myself accompanying him, went to the nearby timber land and got two hundred young sugar maples, black walnuts and b.u.t.ternut trees that were presently planted in concentric circles around that home castle. My father did not believe in drilling ornamental trees into rank and file, like a column of soldiers. He had faith in Nature's beauty and did not think it could be improved by man. Nature should be subordinated to man's will only when cultivation becomes an essential element to the growth, which as a general rule holds only when the tree or plant or shrub is not indigenous to the soil.

In the fall of that year I was prostrated by a large abscess in the right groin. I could neither stand on my feet, nor sit in an upright position. A pallet on the floor, or in some shady nook outdoors when the weather was propitious, was my favorite, and for most of the time my lonely, resting place. On the morning of which I am about to write, my mother was urging my father, as the abscess by its color indicated that it was ripe for the surgeon's lance, to go for a doctor to examine it and my condition, and if proper, to open it and let out the long acc.u.mulated poison. The nearest doctor lived some thirty miles away, but my father, yielding to my mother's persuasions, concluded to go. Before he had arisen from his seat at the table he requested my brother to bring in some stove wood. Boy-like, brother piled up such a quant.i.ty on his left arm that he could not see over it, and, bending backward, he came into the house seemingly oblivious to my location, tripped against me and fell, striking the end of the wood upon the abscess. Effectually, but not in a very scientific manner, this opened it. I swooned away, and it was sometime before consciousness returned to me. As proof of my brother's surgical skill, a star-shaped scar over an inch in length, remains today. There were some mitigating circ.u.mstances, however, in this surgical work:--it saved a lonely journey and a large doctor bill.

He received no compensation--but otherwise--for his effective treatment, and the resultant benefit.

On account of sickness and the want of opportunity, I did not attend school until I was nine years of age. I had a large number of picture books containing stories of bears, panthers, lions and tigers. I had to hire other boys to read them to me, and this kept me in a bankrupt condition. I was frantic to be able to read them myself, and when opportunity offered I soon accomplished this purpose.

When I was fourteen years of age the district school was taught by one Dowling--an Irishman--full six feet in height, a fine specimen of physical manhood, and an excellent teacher. He was employed by the Directors not only to teach, but also, if necessary, to subjugate the rebelious spirit theretofore existing among the larger boys attending the school. His presence and firm and courteous manner dispelled all fear of insubordination.

An incident occurred at that school which has remained fresh in my memory. There was a boy attending by the name of Joe Johnson. In age Joe was between fifteen and sixteen. He was quiet, meditative, awkward--the victim of many tricks, the b.u.t.t of many jokes. One day Dowling ordered all who could write to turn to their desks and within half an hour to produce a verse of original poetry, or as near an approach to it as they were able to go. We had learned that for Dowling to command was for us to obey. I was sitting next to Joe. After meditating a few moments he rapidly wrote the following:--

"I saw the devil flying to the south, With Mr. Dowling in his mouth; He paused awhile and dropped the fool, And left him here to teach a common school."

I looked over Joe's shoulder and read as he wrote, and when he had completed the verse--oblivious to the conditions--I laughed outright.

Mr. Dowling, with vigorous application of his hazel regulator, soon restored my reckoning, and indicated my true lat.i.tude and longitude. Mr.

Dowling read Joe's poetry to the school, to show the ingrat.i.tude of the pupil to his preceptor; but the matter was otherwise received by the older pupils, and it was dropped. This incident no doubt revealed to Joe that he possessed poetic ability of the highest order. Joe, after he had arrived at manhood's estate, published a small volume of poems full of wit, beauty of description, and pleasing satire.

I attended the district school in the winter and worked on the farm in the spring, summer and fall, until I was eighteen years of age, when I left the farm and enrolled myself as a student at the Albion College, a Methodist inst.i.tution strict in its discipline, thorough in its teachings, and of good repute for its excellent educational work. I was there over four years, but did not graduate because of failing health.

In measuring up intellectually with a host of other young men in debate and composition, I was inspired with the faint hope that I might at least win a few victories in the actual conflict of life. I gave much attention to the languages, and was especially proficient in Greek and Latin. I had an inclination and love for that line of study. I did not, however, neglect the exact sciences, but I had no intuition a.s.sisting in that direction. What I know of mathematics, and my studies in that line were quite extensive, is the result of pure reasoning. If proper here, let me observe that the best teacher of the exact sciences is he who obtains a knowledge of them as I did, because he will more fully appreciate all the difficulties met with by the ordinary student.

He who intuitively sees the relation of numbers, form and quant.i.ty, needs but little, if any, a.s.sistance from a teacher. It is he who, by slow and laborious process of correct reasoning, discovers or unfolds these relations, that needs the sympathetic a.s.sistance of a teacher.

I left school because my physician thought I needed more ozone than Greek--more oxygen and suns.h.i.+ne than Latin, and more and better physical development for any success in life's arduous work and its strenuous conflicts. While under the care of Nature's physician, I spent most of my time in hunting and fis.h.i.+ng, with occasional work on the farm. This continued for nearly a year. The treatment was beneficial, and I enjoyed it. During this time I received an invitation from a literary society in the town to deliver before them a lecture, on such subject as I might choose and on such evening as I might designate. I accepted the invitation, and chose as my subject "The Eclectic Scholar." I named a day one month ahead. As this was my first appearance before a public audience, and that, too, composed of the companions and acquaintances of my youth--the most unpropitious of all audiences for a young man to face--I spent nearly the entire month in the preparation of that address. I will not attempt to give its substance or a skeleton of the topics discussed. It was published in the local paper with flattering comments, but I have neither the ma.n.u.script nor a copy. My first intention was to read it, but I finally concluded to commit it to memory, and to deliver it without the aid of the ma.n.u.script. An incident occurred in this connection that, annoying as it was to me at the time, I cannot omit. After the address had been memorized, I went to a dense copse on the land of Mr. Parker, selected a small opening and delivered the address with proper gesticulations to the surrounding saplings, thinking no human ear or eye heard or saw me; but I was mistaken. Old man Parker was out pheasant hunting. He was near me when I commenced to speak, and, quickly concealing himself, saw and heard from his ambush the whole performance. When I picked up my hat to go, he arose, came into full view, clapped his hands and said, as he approached me, "Well done, Orange." As I was not in a conversational mood I did not tarry. At the appointed time I had a full audience. A vote of thanks was tendered me and a request for a copy for publication. Since that time I have learned that many of the great addresses of the world by orators, and statesmen, are first carefully written, then memorized, then repeated in front of mirrors, before delivery to the audiences for whom they were intended.

Late in the fall of this year I concluded to study law, and to make its exposition and practice my life work. With this end in view I entered the office of Hon. John C. Howe, of Lima, La Grange County, Indiana.

Here let me say by way of parenthesis, that our esteemed brother lawyer, James B. Howe of Seattle, is a near relative of his. A brief description of my preceptor may be admissible. He was a quiet, somewhat reserved man, and a great student. Though inclined to be taciturn, yet, when in the mood, his conversation was charming. I have often thought his mind was a little sluggish in its ordinary movement; but, let it be stimulated by an important case or a large fee, and he seemed to be, like Ma.s.sena, almost inspired. It is said of Napoleon's great Marshal that in the ordinary affairs of life he was a dull and even a stupid man; but that when he saw the smoke of battle, and heard the roar of cannon, the rattling of musketry, and saw the gleam of bayonets in the hands of the charging legions, he was seemingly inspired, and never, amid the roar and tumult of battle, made a mistake. In a sense this was true of my preceptor. He was of strong physique and could work with an intensified industry that approached genius. He possessed great power of generalization and could readily reduce complicated and voluminous facts to their proper cla.s.ses, and thus completely master them. Few men in American history have possessed this ability in a pre-eminent degree. I might, among the few, mention John C. Calhoun and Oliver P. Morton of Indiana. Another characteristic of my preceptor was his preferential love of English Reports and English authors; hence, in addition to Blackstone's Commentaries, I read Starkey on Evidence; Chitty and Stephen on Pleadings; Chitty on Contracts, on Notes, and Bills of Exchange; c.o.ke on Littleton; Hale's Pleas to the Crown; Archibald on Criminal Law; Lord Redesdale's Equity Pleadings and Jurisprudence; and Seldon on Practice. I read Dr. Lus.h.i.+ngton's Admiralty Reports.

Seemingly, I had no use for admiralty, living as I did in the inland empire; but I found such knowledge of great use after I was appointed to a Judges.h.i.+p in Was.h.i.+ngton Territory. A little brus.h.i.+ng-up and some additional reading enabled me to try the admiralty causes brought before me to the satisfaction of the bar. I cannot close this brief reference to my law preceptor without the narration of an incident in which he was one of the princ.i.p.al actors. The sheriff of St. Joseph County, Michigan, had been elected for four consecutive terms, and it was alleged and conceded that he was a defaulter in a large amount. He had given a different set of bondsmen for each term, and the question arose which of these sets was responsible. My preceptor was employed by the county; the bondsmen, of which my father was one, employed Columbus Lancaster, afterwards a delegate to Congress from Was.h.i.+ngton Territory, and one of the judges in the provisional government of Oregon. Lancaster was a witty and eloquent speaker and a successful trial lawyer. As the case was an important one, and the counsel distinguished, many lawyers attended the trial. At that time the laws of Michigan gave three justices of the peace, sitting in bank, all of the powers, by the consent of the parties, of the Superior Court. This was a trial before such tribunal. But little evidence was taken, just enough to raise the legal questions involved. The argument of Howe was clear, compact and to my mind conclusive. It had for its basis English authorities and cases. Lancaster answered in an eloquent and witty speech, and after a brief reply from Howe the case was submitted. The justices retired, but in a short time returned. Their judgment was for the defendants. Howe was manifestly disappointed and he said to Lancaster: "I will offer this: You may choose any three from the lawyers present, and we will re-argue the question and I will agree to abide by their decision." The answer of Lancaster was characteristic; he said: "I never run all day to catch a rabbit, and then let him go just to see whether I can catch him again."

Both of these men have long since been gathered to their fathers. They were just men and true, and in ability far above the average.

I was admitted to the bar in the fall of 1850. Under the laws of Michigan at that time, admission to the bar was not necessary to practice law in that State, but it was the usual and dignified course.

The cla.s.s seeking admission was quite a large one; most of them, in fact all of them save myself, were old lawyers seeking admission in the regular and time-sanctified order. An afternoon was given by Judge Wing, who presided, for the hearing of the pet.i.tion of the applicants. The Judge and the Bar were the examiners. They all took a free hand. I thought I could discover a disposition on the part of the Judge and the Bar to put the old pract.i.tioners, whose knowledge of elementary principles had been somewhat dimmed by the lapse of years, at a disadvantage as compared with the accuracy of a young man fresh from the books. Hence, many questions were rushed to me for a full and accurate statement of the text-books, which in most cases I was able to give, to the manifest pleasure of the examiners. We were all admitted. In antic.i.p.ation of so propitious a result, we had provided a banquet for Bench and Bar. At its conclusion the Judge said, "a motion for a new trial would be in order, and if such motion was made he would take it under advis.e.m.e.nt till the next term of the court, when he had but little doubt that it would be granted."

After my admission to the Bar I diligently continued my legal studies, confining myself, however, almost exclusively to American Reports and authors, such as Kent's Commentaries; Story on the Const.i.tution, on Equity Jurisprudence and Pleadings; Greenlief on Evidence; Gould on the Form and the Logic of Pleadings; Bishop on Criminal Law; and many others. I have continued this extensive reading during all of my professional career when books were at hand. Looking back from a standpoint of eighty years' time, I am satisfied that I have read too much, and reflected, reasoned, a.n.a.lyzed, generalized and thoroughly digested too little. I often think of the saying of Locke, the philosopher, that if he had read as much as other men he would have known as little as they. There is much truth in this statement. To read without thought, without reflection, without a.n.a.lysis and a thorough digest of what one reads, is a waste of time. More, it weakens the memory, does not acc.u.mulate knowledge, and incapacitates the mind for serious work. While I have no admiration for a correctly-styled "case lawyer," yet, were I to live my professional career over again, I would get my legal principles from a small but well-selected library of authors of established repute; and then I would consult leading cases on each topic or subject, as a help for their proper and logical application. The practice of law consists in the application of a well-defined legal principle to a certain combination of facts. Whether the principle applies is a question for the courts; whether the facts that enter into the definition exist is a question for the jury. But, as I am not writing a legal treatise, I leave the topic here.