The Portland daily press., 1882-11-03

| faithful citizen, a Christian gentleman. and
steadfast friend,
Mr.. McCobb was born in Phipsburg, in this
State. u o 49,, and graduated at Bowdoin Col
| lege IN loZy. Among his classmates were DR.
William Wood and Hon. Phineas Barnes Of
this city, and Hon. John Hartley of Saco, for
| merly Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Of
the United States. He studied law at the
Harvard University Law School, and in the
| offices OF Hon. Reael Williams of Augusta
and Fessenden & Dsblois of this city. He was
admitted to practice about the year 1885, in
| augusta, and was partner with Hon. Joseph
| Whllams nearly ten years, and during that
time the firm of Williams & McCobb held
| prominent rank in the profession, and had a
| large and lucrative business
In io4o he removed to this city and became a
member Of the Cumberland Bar Since his
residence here, he has held various positions OF
public and private trusts. Among them
name those of City Treasurer, Mayor of Port
land, Senator from Cumberland County,
treasurer for twenty-seven years of the Port
land Gas Company, and Treasurer since
its organization of the Maine General Hospi-
tai. 1t is enough to say that in all these trusts
he performed faithfully and honestly his whole
duty.
AS lawyer, he was thorough and laborious
in the study and preparation of his cases. No
man was ever more faithful to his clients He
made their interests his own. But, controlled
by sensitive conscience, he would advocate
no claim he deemed wrong. His client must
be clearly In the right, not only as q matter of
law, but in equity as well. Otherwise, he
would plainly state his views and decline all
connection with the ease.
Mr. McCobb had no taste for the controver-
sizes incident to his profession. Peculiarly a
peace maker, his first effort was almost inyari-
ably to effect an amieabe adjustment between
litigants; and the dockets of the courts in Cum
berland county will show that during his prac-
tice OF nearly thirty-seyen years in Portland,
full three-fourths of the cases in the courts in
which he was counsel have the entry of '.Naith-
er Parity, the result to a large extent of these
efforts.
Our friend was a positive characteI-positive
in his opinion-and equally positive in the ex-
preston OF them. Sometimes these expressions
gave offence by an apparent abruptness of
manner; but this apparent abruptness was
largely due to intense earnestness. Truth was
the ruling power of his life, and no sophistry,
or mere play of words could change or modify
it. The law of right was with him the SUI
preme law.
We seldom attain to the full comprehension
of the inner nature Of those about us, however
intimate may be our relations Mr.. McCobb
was, in many respects like sealed book to
those with whom he usually associated in the
affairs of daily life. He had a delicate and
refined sense. cultivated by study and rehec-
ton, which recognized and assimilated to itself
all the true and beautiful in art, in
the sciences, and in nature. This
led him to the study of natural
history as a speciality; and though claiming no
exact knowledge OF any of the multform
branches of this science, he none the less pur-
sued it with devoted earnestness. 1t was this
that frequently took him into the woods in
pursuit of the wild and unique flora, hidden in
their shades. But his love of nature was not
limited to the discovery of new flowers and Gu
rious growths. Any new fact in astronomy or
geology interested him, and commanded his
thought and attention.
Thus he was both lawyer and scholar; and
to these we may add, as their crown and glory,
that in the truest, highest and noblest sense,
he lived the life of Chrstian-not the life of
mere creeds but in the conscientious perform
ance of those duties which all creeds alike in
culcate AS he lived, SO he died. Looking
death, all through his weary illness, in the
face, he met the messenger calmly. trnstingly,
and without fear.
At the conclusion of Judge Kingsburys re-
marks, Judge Barrows replied as follows:
JUDGE BARRows' REMARKS.
My Brethren of the Cumberland Bar,-Is
has so often fallen to my lot. in past years,
when sitting here, to respond to your kind
"reminiscences of departed brethren, old and
young, upon whose fresh graves your fraternal
regard has sought to lay tender and respect
full tribute, that feel myself liable to fall into
the commonplace phrases of trite and indis-
for grain" the emptiness of which is to none
more apparent than it is to those whose hearts
are sore with recent loss, when all the WHILE
our chief and sincere desire is to convey to
them the assurance of the cordial sympathy
we feel. "Dust to dust says the burial SER
vice chilling the hearts of the mourners whose
eyes are strained to follow their friend behind
the veil. But / assume on the present occa-
sion that you neither desire nor expect me to
reiterate the encomiums which you have be-
slowed on these three old and well known
members of this bar who have gone in and
out with and among US so many years and
whose various traits and characteristics were
so well and thoroughly recognized among us.
1t would be needless waste of words, since
all that part of these memorial services you
have already done and done well.
Rather let me speak briefly of one point
wherein alike they enjoyed favored lot, or
more correctly speaking their lives, each and
all, escaped an evil chance which not I'M
frequently comes to shroud advancing age
with deeper gloom than that Of the grave
ITSELF These were none of the veterans who
lag superhuous on the stage. They endured
mo cold gradations of decay. They were
rather of those Quos memo credidit esse seaes.
Dipped in the fountain of perpetual youth
they seemed until the near approach of the
last great change. Not that they wrought
with all the vigor and energy which they
respectively assessed in the prime Of life.
But they all We're spared the slow decay that
sometimes saps the mental power of those
who are unwilling to believe themselves old.
1t is too often the fate of those who have
played active and prominent parts in early
life to encounter, at the same time, from one
cause or another, the WEAKNESS and infrmi-
ties of age and the discomforts ofneglect. The
generations of men press closely on each other
in the race of life
Name follows name forevermore
AS swift waves shame slow waves BEFORE
Once to achieve reputation, power, influence,
success in business, suficeth not
Laus noua nisi orittr, etians retas amittitur
1t is he only who holds out, instant in sea-
son and out of season, with strength and ca
pacity to labor and labor well to the last who
can expect to maintain his position in the
eyes and thoughts of the men by whom he is
surrounded
That these men were of this type
the warmth of your praise to-day suf-
ficiently proves. Very different they were
from each other-not merely in bodily pres
ence-but in mental characteristics and moral
force, in culture and in tastes, in modes of
thought and modes of speech. But in one
form or another each possessed traits which
suficed to command your respectful regard.
As recall their utterances in this court in
the years that are gone by, can see how well
they severally illustrated the truth of the old
Latin adage-Quatis oir, tails CRATIC OF their
peculiar differences no one here day needs
to be further reminded. To set them forth in
detail would require more time than can well
be devoted on this occasion. 1t is well for the
living to think sometimes of the day, not far
distant, when they also shall be numbered
with the dead-not fearfully nor loathingly, as
we are apt to do, but with the cheerful hope
that is born of a steady faith in Him who
made US, who "knoweth our frame and re-
membereth that we are but DUST 1t is in
deed an impressive lesson of the brevity of
human life, the vanity of all things earthly,
and the need we have to "do with our might
whatsoever our hands find to do, because the
night cometh in which no man can work.
that is taught by this unusual mortality among
the senior members of the bar within this
brief period of single vacation.
We dare not wish them back;
For there is rest, and here a wearying round
OF never ending cares that know no bound
Beset them on their track.
Is there for human eyes
No fairer land than this domain of ours,
No sweeter music, or more fragrant flowers
No land of Paradise?