The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1874-12-11
Washington Correspondence of .he Chicago Trib
une.
The United States Supreme Court.

Clifford ard Field are said to have been
the Two Justices dissenting from the opinion
of the Supreme Court in the last legal-tender
case, where the heir of Maryland, the wan,
dering heir, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad
Company, refused to pay specie interest 10
the parent granny of the state. They DelieVe
in specie on both sides, but corporations new
er surrender.
These two men, Clifford and Field, are the
only members of the Judiciary who hold with
tradition, rather than vigor, to ultra-radical
strict construction. 1t is assuring to the
country to know that, whatever political
changes may be made, the Supreme tribunal
is, to great degree, the conservator OF the
national party's policy. Miller, Swayne, Da-
Wis, Hunt, Bradley, Strong, and waite, an
men of quiet habits and relative youth, VIII
keep that high tribunal in the course pre-
scribed by the spirit of the war that broke
the pretensions of the provinces.
Clifford is the Oldest sitting member on the
bench. His life and privacy are strictly Ju-
dicial. Little or nothing is known OF his dai,
ly walks and talks. His enormous size ana
statue prohibit him from much exercise. he
is a diligent Judge. Behind him stretch the
years of public action far away to the city OF
Mexico, where he made the treaty OF peace
when Texas was the public question, and ner
annexation the policy of the party to which
CluOTu UelOuScu. EdlGuluily tuC oiu hA"h
his skin and hair and the light of his eye, OF
almost muscular strength-stands by the
opinions he formed as Van Buren Demo
crat. Nobody imputes anything but hlsh
corscientiousness to him, yet he differs with
the majority less on the facts than Oh the
flavor of the Constitution. What COM
mentary on the finite mind! A little primer
of laws, called the Constitution, does not
read the same way to two equally pure,
equally wise JUDGES.
While Clifford boards by Davis at the Ma
tional Hotel, Field keeps house on Capitol
Hill. He is wonderful home-body, and is
always repairing or adding something to his
establishment. There, in part OF the same
building where Calhoun died, and Congress
met, and prisoners of war were kept, the
Judge reads everything under the sun, new
or old and is little more in love with his
home every day. How coald he go against
the legal-tender decision, being so much that
way himself.
The court is a queer little world. Its great
est practitioner is dead, Curtis. He was
natural lawyer. His mind could cross an
ocean on stepping-stoEes, so exact and so all
bounding was il. He used to sit on this
bench, but resigned to practice and make
competence; and every day, going to and iro,
from law to liquor, from ethics to toddy, ne
described with his elbows, by repeated bend
ings OF the same, several circumnavigatlons
of the globe. The vast professions OF con-
mon law, the stately pile of the Roman stat
utes which Legare laoored so hard to recon-
cile with the common law, and thus minsle
the classics and Gothic arches-rose all t1e
clearer to Curtis sight on the vulgar COM
pound called cocktail. He was good old
Democratic tcddy-taker. He died in the re-
cess, when the court was off at leisure. we
shall not look upon his like again.
Judge Miller is finishing a law-book, made
up, believe, of the decisions of the bench
whe -eof he is worthy member.
-"He is good man to have around, says
Mrs. Miller. "He can just take book, aod
sit and read good-humoredly all day, and DC
interrupted by the children while writing MS
decisions"
When a new man is to come on the bench,
they chatter together like a number oil great
clucking hens, each of which expects a new
hen to sit mutually on the general eggs which
she had no part in laying. They look at him
when he arrives, and make up their minds,
and 90 home and report to their wives every
day. OF course their wives know very little
about it, but il is quite subject ior graaI
while. The new man, meantime, IS ADVISED
by his wife on the subject OF his gown. Ihere
she is great authority, on the SUBJECT Oh
backstitch and the size of the sleeves. 1t IS
not every woman who can get her husband
into petticoats. She goes to court slyly, to
see if he gowned as well as the rest OF them !;
and sometimes, perhaps, suggests that 1t Is
time he had new one-intimatlng that her
old silk is also shabby.
Bret Harte told me a good story about his
visit to Washington year ago. lie had not
been in the city at any time previously.
81 was delighted with that Capital he
said. ''It is so wide-reaching, so pure, SO
oe a. r ctr0llp1 and
down, knowing little about il all, until saw
assign, fClerk of the Supreme Court Then,
| guessing the door, 1 entered that awful trbu-
| nal of which had heard so much. Sure
| enough, there they were, in their silk gowns
large, grave, Greek-looking fellows, all in a
row, with one lawyer talking, two listening,
| and no spectators.
sat down, the solitary intruder, in far
corner. The sounds of the pleader monoto-
nously arising, made the only disturbance be-
| sides.
In few minutes, one of the judges, auto
| matically turning his head, looked at me. He
said something to the next judge. The next
| to the third. So along the whole line the
| mysterious communication went. They all
| faced from the advocate and looked right at
me. Then the judge nearest me winked. l
| could not have believed it, but he winked
| twice!
| l blushed like Ann Page when FalstaIl
| Ginked.
The awful presence winked three times.
| Suddenly remembered that it was Field.
| This was the bench he was on. had
| been acquainted with him in California"
| 'Well, Harte, it is the first time joke
| went round the Supreme Court. They
couldn't even take the joke of Cushing's
| confirmation"