Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1882-05-30
THE LAST COURT.
Some Interesting Facts About the United
States Supreme Court.

Some Interesting Facts About the United
States Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court is about the last
place in all Washington where anyone
would think of looking for oddities or
things that are amusing, and yet there are
few departments of the public service any
more rich in both. The Court is old
enough now to have its antiq uities and
venerable belongings, and while to the
casual eye its principal property lies in the
solemn and grandmotherlY impressiveness
of full and black -gowned bench, the
hooks and corners of its chambers and
small Offices are filled with traps and frag-
ments that tell of other days, when
dignity was less thickly laid over its front
and the simplicity of an early time and a
palmer people found expression in common
objects and primitive forms.
1t is but few days since the latest
Clerk of the Court, a Mr.. McKenny-as
pleasant gentleman as you will ever meet
in any walk of life-uncovered from the
lumber OF half-forgotten closet
THE VERY FIRST RECORDS
OF the Court itself, beginning with its very
first session, Oh the first Monday in Febru.
ary, 1890, in the city of New York. The
volume is about the size of an ordinary
bank ledger, but its sides are of thick
and leathery pasteboard, to which the
softening influence of time has impaired a
spongy sOftness and a pungent odor. 1t
was in use until long after the Court re-
moved to Philadelphia, so that its corners
became turned and frayed, and had to be
protected with patches of parchment,
which were neatly glued on. The paper
of that peculiar fiber which prevailed in
those days, has turned a very dingy
yellow, but the handwriting of John
Tucker, the first clerk, is as bold and clear
and almost as black as on the day when
the ink was wet Mr.. Tucker was not a
fancy penman, but his hand was singularly
legible, and his date lines, together with
the manner in which he used to build up
the names of the Justices present, between
a couple OF strong brackets, with hori-
zontal line filing out the spaces at either
side, testify to his taste. The Court was
SLOW IN STARTING,
As became body so dignifed and destined
to 60 on SO long and litigation was much
less luxuriang in those days. There was
nothing done the first day. John Jay pre-.
sided, and almost Immediately after open
ing Court he adjourned it. Few sessions
were held that year, and the next year s
February found the Court in Philadelphia,
with new Clerk, who was an artist with
the quill whose dates began with orna-
mental initials in German text, and who
graduated his writing regularly in nice dis
play down TO the body of his record for
each day, which was plainly written in q
hand like copper plate engraving. These
records were evidently regarded by their
various keepers as matters more of utility
than ornament, and some OF the clerks had
very little notion of either tidiness or
uniformity. Thus the next volume is
smaller in size, and two or three of those
which intervened between the first book
and the books that were destroyed when
the British had the Capitol during
THE ALTERcATIoN
OF 1912 are made up of variously colored
sheets of paper of various shapes and
sizes. These were bound az the end of a
year, and not always well bound. Some
are large, some small, and nearly all inse-
cure. They are continuous, for all that,
and leave but one blank in the history OF
the Court from the day of its institution
and that is a blank which never will be
filled, for the reason that the papers were
burned with the building which held them,
when our dear cousins OF England had the
town as aforementioned.
a lawyer, familiar with the judicial his.
tory of the country, could find in these old
books material for half dozen new ones
They bristle with names that are more or
less illustrious, and their quaint, straight
forward stories of causes heard would to
such a reader lead to many curious rem.
iniscence Of a day and people long gone
the way Of days and flesh. To even lay
man there is an attraction in their pages (;
and in the roll of attorneys of the Court
anyone, even the least familiar with public
events, will find the names of nearly all
the men who have become illustrious since
the birth of the nation. These rolls-the
originals-are kept in little cylindrical
boxes of tin, carefully locked away
in safe in the Clerks private
office, between the public office and
the roolng room. 1hey are OF parchment,
and the ink in which most of the names
were written has faded out, until many OF
them are very dim indeed and hard to
make out. Any hunter after autographs
would bankrupt himself to own the most
OF them.
SLOWED AWAY
In the safe are lot of the minute books
of the Court-the books in which were
made the notes from which the records
were each night written up. And some
of these are curious enough. Two Of
them, dated in one of the years before
this country grew into its teens. are in
curious contrast with the neat, business
like minute books OF these days. They
are little py-books, such as were in the
long.ago used by school children. They
were made by printer and stationer in