Litchfield enquirer., 1881-09-22
Gov. Hubbard's Eulogy of Judge Waldo.

Gov. Hubbard's Eulogy of Judge Waldo. | At the meeting of the Hartford County Bar,
 on Monday, the 18th inst, Ex Governor Hub
 bard pronounced the following eulogy on the late Judge Waldo:
 have long had-I hope may never cease
 to have-some of my choicest personal friends
 amongst my brethren of the bar. And SO, as 1 one after another has fallen from our ranks, I
 have occasionally, as kind of piOus duty. at-
 tempted word or two of tribute. But to-day
 l hesitate. 1 have just come from chambers
 which lack a familiar presence, and where
 stands in it's mute eioquence vacant desk.
 If were to consult my own feelings, 1, too, 1 should remain mute But when the whole
 bar is met to utter it's common grief for one
 who has been to us all, friend, father and
 brother in one, how can 1 who have known | him SO long and loved him so we'll refuse to
 break my silence with few broken words? | have known Judge Waldo ever since my
 admission to the bar. For the last fourteen years l have been connected with him n bus-
 ness, and during all those years have been not
 only in daily but in intimate relations with | him. Let me then, measuring my words by
 my knowledge of the man, attempt passing
 estimate of his professional and personal char 1 acter.
 He was not man of large general know
 ledge nor of very extensive literary culture. I l have heard him say that he never attended
 school after he was fourteen years old, and
 only two months after he was thirteen, aud
 that he studied Hedges Logic whilst at work
 in the potato field. But he had marvellous
 genius of industry, and by force of this he came up out of the common school into the | profession, and through the profession into | distinguished stations in the state and general government.
 Neither was he brilliant lawyer IrP a | strict sense hesitate to call him an eminently
 learned one. But his requirements were very | ample in all the common learning of the pro- fession; and in particular branches such as | municipal, statutory, probate and practice
 law, and especially in that great field of ele- mentary law which governs the common af- | fairs Of common life, he had few superiors His opinions on these subjects had an almost judicial authority with the community; and l so it Tesulted that not few of the differences | between man and man which in bad hands itch and fester into lawsuits, sometimes into hereditary enmities, were composed almost at the outbreak by his sagacious counsels and friendly mediations | He lacked somewhat the qualities which give reputation to an advocate that one sd- | edness, or rather many sidedness of intellect
 which lights up one side of cause and casts the other in shadow, as the sun kindles in turn one hemisphere and darkens the other; that light artillery of wit satire, invective and technical assault which always worries and sometimes wastes an antagonist; that deadly insight-Rufus Choate once called it an instinct for the carotid'-which discov- CTS as 1t were by intuition an adversarys weak point and drives through it by strategy, sur prise or main force. Some natures there are in Nkha tI,ok need, like an athlete the point of an enemy's weapon to sting them into strength, His na- ture was not at all of this make and temper. Quite the contrary. The whole drift of his mind andthe whole moral constitution of the 1 man tended to the things which make for peace. He had little taste, therefore, for the hot and heady contentious of the forum, little stomach for it's duels oflwit and stormy an- tagonisms. -f .....t T. =. As natural consequence his field of prac- tice was more largely that of a counsellor than of an advocate. This office is seemingly more humble than the other, but not let me add, one whit less responsible, and have some- times thought of higher grade and value, for 1t accomplishes some of the best professional results by reason and without the expense and bad blood of litigation. And then besides all and above all, 1t comes home closer than any other to the conscience of a client and, if W0lI cAtGClScu, IrleS HIS TollS ana discovers whereof he IS made. It is not unfrequently the great and solemn confessional of the law which carries with sealed lips the cares and fears and perplexities of men, the peace and honor of families, the successions of children and of children's children, the casuistries and restitutOns of the living and the anxieties and testaments of the dying. With what religious fidelity and good conscience our friend dis charged this almost priestly function have no need to tell; the name and fame of it are still fresh amongst us. More than any other man have ever known in the profession much as any l have known even in the sacred calling was a peacelnaker amongst men and a pacihcatOr of their strifes and quar- rels
 In word, his practice represented not SO much the battles and sieges of professional warfare as it's truces, diplomacies and treaties of peace.
 have spoken of our friend as counsellor. Let me now say word of him as judge. Without possessing great boldness of purpose or the highest range of intellect, he had what else his mind might possibly have lacked "a most admirable poise for the judicial office and very delicate appreciation of natural equities. He took pleasure as a judge in de- termining the controversies of men by the standard of the judicial conscience. He de. lighted less in the cast iron forms and rules of law than in the feyible modes and ''uncoven- anted mercies" of chancery. Accordingly he used to stretch the administration of law as near as might be-a legal dOctrinaire might say too near-to the lines of equity, and the Hines of equity as near as possible to the lines of good conscience
 No judge was ever more patient and pains. taking in investigation, more steady in tell- per, more courteous in bearing, more dispas. sionate in judgment in word more clear and conscientious in his great function as a minister of justice. When he put on his office he put off affection and favor as if always mindful that the measures we mete out to others are to be meted to Us in turn. Wehave had abler judges on our bench without doubt, but rarely as hard working, faithful and useful an one. ..G ,; ., f5 .
 have already said that our deceased brother was greater as councillor and judge than as an advocate let me now add that as man he was greater than either, and equal, I think, to the best
 -s Without anything whatever of pretensinn, his life was pattern of all those things which are honest and of good report amongst men. His industry wasincessant; rest with him was rust. and he husbanded every day and hour of his life as if lent him on an usury for good. His chief purpose was not to gain riches of applause, but to walk justly in all things. Such qualities as these sometimes engender solne- thing of Consciousness in judgment, sun,',- thing of austerity in morals but none 0f these things tended in the least to narrow the breadth of his social life or freeze up any of . it's warm currents. On the other hand he was full of the gentlest humanities singnlarly free from evil-speaking, and as large aud tender almost as Il woman in his loves and sympa- thies.
 CONCLUDED ON FOURTH PAGE.