The Cincinnati daily star. [volume] ([Cincinnati, Ohio]) 1875-1880, 1878-07-15
AN OLD JUDICIAL CEREMONY.

Years ago 1t was not an unusual custom
for student of law to have the privileges
and opportunities of l'raoticing his profess
sion granted him without undergoing the
tedious examination before q court COM
mittee, as they are required now. This, of
course, did not apply to all young men
anxious for livelihood, or perhaps dis.
tinction, in this honorable profession, but
rather to the sons of old practitioners men
of culture and eminent responsibility,
whose intentions regarding the future of
their offspring were well known to the
Bench and Bar. If the young man was
endowed with ON average amount of intelli-
gence, and blessed with moral qualities of
an evenness to bring him within the edge
of ecclesiasticity or journalism, he was
readily granted by the Bench, which, in
those days, alone assumed the prerogative,
permission to address the Court without
further formality than that of an introduce
tiun. We believe this is practice still in
vogue in the South where chivalry and
honor form no small item of their stock in
trade. In Kentucky, especially among
those old aristocratic families associated
most honorably for years and years with
the practice of the laws of their Common
wealth, the son in direct line succeeds the
father in his profession, inherits his prac-
tice, and commands the respectful recogni-
ton of the Bench as q natural result.
Up the Monongahela River, at Morgan
town, Marshall Swartzwelder read law
many years ago, and was considered by the
judges of the circuit one of the most prom
Using young men to be found in days
travel. 1t was the custom for the Bench to
meet on certain occasions at the big inn by
the cross roads and examine the aspirants
for admission to practice, and either then
qualify or reject them. 1t was cold,
bitter cold, night of young Swartzwelders
examination, and the wind grew sharper as
the night went on, catching up the snow
on the fields and upon the housetops, scat
tering it in flying worthless the white-cov-
cred streets, quiet enough at all times,
were on this particular night silent as the
frosted graves in the cemetery on the hill,
and the closed shutters excluded the bright
freight, save here and there, where some
chance window made cheerful shadows
through the frosted panes. Inside the inn
a roaring fire diffused strong, ruddy
glow, showing in strong relief the broad,
and the dim outlines of the students figure
in the furthest and most retired nook of the
great room. The wind still whistled wick
edly without, and the big sign on the inn
post moaned uncomfortably as it swung to
and fro on its hickory joints. The portly
figures at length hitched their chairs closer
to the pile of living embers, and, between
the whiffs of his silent pipe, Judge ----
said bluntly:
Marshall, do you know anything about
law?"
Diffidently the student raised his voice
from the shadowy corner to say he was
there, and prepared to undergo an exami-
nation on this point. This evoked no re-
ply, and the Bench looked vacantly at the
red hot logs in the arched chimney place,
and spreads its open hands across its judi
cial face to keep off the strong fire light.
''Do you know, Marshall" came from
the same voice of the Bench, slowly and
deliberately, chow to make q whiskey
punch?"
In common with others of his own age,
the student had had some experience in
this delicate accomplishment, though at
that moment, in the presence Of greatness,
it was with reluctance he admitted the fact.
"Well," continued the old lawyer, "sup-
pose you make the punch, and in the mean
time we will sign your certificate"
Happy to escape an examination ordeal,
a second invitation was not needed the
punch was made, plenty of it, hot, spicy
and strong; the certificate duly signed, the
health of the happy boy drank time and
time again, and thus it was that Marshall
Swartzwelder was admitted to practice law.
It may have been the shrewdness and legal
qualifications of the student were of an
order to overmatch that possessed by the
judicial ermine, and it was a piece of wis.,
dom on their part to swap as they did
Pitsburg Leader
A subscriber asks us, "What is good
for warts on horses? ?" We don't know.
We never owned but one mir of borsas-