Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1871-07-15
Mr.. Cur.is,s Defense of MIR. Field.

As a specimen of pure legal ratiocination, Mr..
Curtis's pamphlet on the BarlOw-Field contro-
versy is one of the most amusing contributions
to literature which has been made for many a
long day. We by no means mean to imply
that it is amusing in itself, for it is on the con-
trary, very long, very diffuse, and very
dull; but in the results arrived at, and in
the methods used to arrive at them, it is well
nigh unexampled. We regret to say that it is
one of those productions which now and then
bring great popular discredit upon the legal pro-
fession. Claiming from the beginning a right
to assume, for purposes of argument, cOndi-
ton of affairs which every man, who knows
anything at all of the subject knows does not
show that, by the application of familiar rules
of law, white is, after all, clearly black, and
black is white. Unfortunately, ordinary men
and women, those base elements of humanity
for whose good and convenience law mainly
exists, cannot be brought to see things quite in
this light, and it is by thus ignoring what is pa
tent to every one but the advocates, that law, as
a science, has more than once been brought into
public contempt. We do not think at all
worth while now and here to enter into the
merits of the Barlow-Field controversy. Mr.
Curtis's method Of treating it deserves, how
ever, moments consideration. The Tribunal"
to which he addresses himself is mainly COM
posed of the unbiased and unprecedented men,
bers of my profession" The legal profession,
like every other, is made up, fortunately for
itself and the world, not of men living on pure
reason, but of human beings. When, therefore,
these human beings are asked, under the appli-
cation Of familiar principles of law to arrive at
conclusions which they and all the world know
to be ludicrously wrong, they are very apt, after
ALL not to arrive there. For instance, it is I'M
questionably true that Judge Barnard of the
New York supreme court has never yet been
regularly impeached for crimes and misdemean-
orS; it is equally true that MeSsrS. Jay Gould
and James Fisk, Jr., have never been found
guilty of theft or fraud, and undergone the
penalty of the offended law; il is no less true
that it is a familiar rule of construction, that
all persons accused of crime are supposed to
be innocent until they are proved to be guilty.
When, however, Mr.. Curtis takes these simple
facts and rules, and puts them together, he NAV
possibly produce certain conclusions slightly
astounding to the ordinary man. 1t is the
stolid manner in which he does this, and the
Slightly Pecksniffan tone in which he moraizes
over the result he arrives at, which lends its
amusing characteristics to this production.
As an example of what we refer to we cite
the following bit of reasoning exactly as it
stands in the pamphlet. Judge Barnard has
been twice elected to the bench, and his asso-
ciates consent to sit by his side Up. 99) Mr. Cur
tbs has not heard of his impeachment or re-
moval from Office Up. 22); therefore every order
of Judge Barnard is to be regarded as the order
of any other magistrate. Mr.. James Fisk, Jr.,
is person whom Mr.. Curtis has never seen to
his knowledge, and with whose general merits
or dement's he possesses no acquaintance Up. S5).
Mr.. Fisk must, therefore, be presumed to he
useful and proper member of society. A judge
of the supreme court of New York may perform
such judicial acts as signing injunctions and
orders wherever he may be, and at all hours Up.
30.) When, therefore, Judge Barnard having
been hastily summoned from the bedside of his
dying mother, hundred or so miles away, ar
rives in New York late at night, and is met on
his way from the cars to his home by lawyer,
who stops him and asks him to sign an order
appointing James Fisk, Jr., receiver of hum
dred and fifty miles of railroad, and millions of
property, in suit in which Fisk was virtually
plaintiff; and when Judge Barnard takes the
order into "a real estate office" near at hand,
and there instantly signs it, such an order so
procured is one which Mr.. Curtis declares it en-
tirely clear was proper to be made Up. 26).
1t is wholly impossible to deal gravely with
such method of arguing as this; sOphistry is
no name for it. Under the pretense of eXclud-
ing prejudice, Mr.. Curtis, in a popular appeal
10 the bar under the guise of legal opinion,
undertakes to establish rules of evidence which
cut off all information concerning the essential
facts upon which the decision of the case in
point must turn. The verdict of the bar upon
the Barlow-Field controversy can only be af-
fected in a way disastrous to Mr.. Field, by any
such system of defence as that here pursued.
Charges of most serious professional charac-
ter have In this case been advanced from re-
sponsble quarters, in every way in which it
was possible to advance them. Mr.. Field had,
at first, either of two courses to pursue; he
might rest upon his high reputation, and silent
ly and contemptuously ignore the charges which
were made; or he could have demanded as a
right, an investigation by a jury or by his pro-
tessional brethren. He did not see fit to pursue
the course of silence. In his newspaper contro-
versy with Gen. Barlow, he said that he eagerly
courted an investigation; in fact, demanded it
Of right. We have not, as yet, heard of any in
yeStigation into the matter by an unprecedented
tribunal, nor can we regard this unique opinion
of Mr.. George 1icknor Curtis, prepared sat the
request of an intimate friend of Mr.. Field" as
in any way substitute for it.-American Lag
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