, 1864-04-09
Gen. B. T. Butler.

He went to Lowell in his twentieth year,
and took hold of life with vigorous grasp.
The law office which he entered as a student
was that Of gentlemen who spent most of
his time ia Boston, ,and from whom he received
not one word of guidance or instruction nor
felt the need of one. He,.read law with all his
might, and began almost Immediately to prac-
tice little in the police courts of Lowell
conducting suits brought by the factory girls
against the mill corporations, and defending
petty criminal cases glad enough to earn an
occasional two dollar fee. The presiding
justice CHANGED to be really learned lawyer
and able man, and thus this small practice
was valuable aid to the student Small in
deed were his gains, and sore his need. One
six months Of his two years probation he
taught public school in Lowell, in order to
procure decent clothing, and he taught it
well, say his old pupils. What with his
school, his law studies, and his occasional
practice, he worked eighteen hours in the
twenty-four.
His audacity and quickness stood him in
good stead at this period. One of his first
cases being called into court, he said in his
usual way Let notice be given !"
In what paper?" asked the aged clerk
of the Court, a strenuous Wing.
ain the Lo,oeU Ad0ertiser," was the re.
ply; the Lo,oeU Ad0ertiSer being Jackson
paper, never mentioned in Lowell court
of whose mere existence few there present
would confess knowledge.
"The LopeU AdUertiSer 2" said the clerk,
with disdainful nonchalance, +" don't know
such paper"
Pray, Mr. Clerk, said the lawyer, do
not interrupt the proceedings of the court
for if you begin to tell us what you don't
know, there will be no time for anything
else"
He was always prompt with retort of this
kind So, at later day, when he was cross
questioning a witness in not the most res
pectful manner, and the court interposing,
reminded him that the witness was pro-
fessor in Harvard College, he instantly re-
piled, am aware of it, your honor; we
hung one Of them the other day"
His politics were, not, in reality, an obsta-
Gle to his success to the bar, though his friends
feared they would be- There are two sides to
every suit; and as people go to law to win,
they are not likely to overlook an advocate,
who, besides the ordinary motives of exertion
has the stimulus of political and social an
tagonism. He won his way rapidly to a lu-
crative practice, and with sufficient rapidity
to an important leading and conspicuous
practice. He was bold, diligent, vehement,
nexhaustible opponent He accepted the
theory of his profession without limitation or
reserve, conceiving it to be his duty to save
or serve his client with not the slightest re-
gard to the moral aspect of the matter in dis
pute. That is the concern of the law-maker
and the court; the advocates business, in his
opinion, is simply and solely to serve his eli
ent's interest And if there should be law
yers at all, that is beyond question, the cor
rect theory of the vocation.
In some important particulars, Gen. But
Ter surpassed all his contemporaries of the
New England bar. His memory was such
that he could retain the whole of the testi-
mouy of the longest trial without taking a
note. His power of labor seemed unlimited.
In fertility of expedient and in the lightning
quickness of his devices to snatch victory
from the very jaws Of defeat, his equal has
seldom lived To these gifts add persever-
ance that knew no discouragement, and new
er accepted defeat while one possibility of tri-
umph remained One man who saw him much
at the bar in former times, wrote of him three
years ago:
His devices and shifts to obtain an. &C