The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1888-01-17
GOSSIP ABOUT MR.. LAMAR
SENATOR WALTHALL TALKS OF
HIM AS A LAWYER.

!
! His Good Work in the Interior Depart
ment, and How He Briefed His Cases
His Papers and How He Keeps
Them--Lamar as a Writer and Gas
| tronome-What He is Worth, and
Som ching About His Efforts at
Journalism.
From the NelD York World
WASHINGTON, Jan. Ex-senator Walt
hall, of Mississippi was Secretary Lamar's
law partner just after the war. The two
practi,ed together until Lamar took a legal
professorship at Oxford, and Walthall says
there is no doubt as TO Lamars fitness for
the supreme Bench from the standpoint of
legal ability or learning He says that
Mississippians are surprised that such a
| question should be raised, and they all
| regard Lamar as a great constitutional
lawyer
The Interior Department has given MIR.
Lamar a chance to show his power in the
mastery Of cases, and he has such system
that he kept bis work up to the times. BY
the reading of paper he could take the
| gst out of it and condense a dozen pages
into sentence. He briefed all the cases
that went to President Cleveland, and it
was from these briefs that the President got
some knowledge Of Lamars fitness for the
| Supreme Court He kept the entire run OF
the department, and each bureau ard divls-
| ion had to give him a brief of each matter
which had been before it, so that Lamar
! could see at a glance just what was being
| done. Lamar knows how to make others
work, and he has order for others though
he has not the practical ability to take core
of his papers himself
He is like Beck in this, and he keeps his
! most precious documents in barrel or
| leaves them scattered over his desk. When
he wants paper he stirs up the pile until
! he finds it, and he shakes his name IN rage
If any one ties up his papers in bundles.
! He works like cart-horSe or rather like
bloOded mare in treadnill. He will jump
at his work and rush along until he almost
! drops from exhaustion. Then he goes TO
sleep and rests like a baby for ten or twelve
hours at a stretch, and awakes as fresh
as a daisy. He has tired out all the
mon around the department and kept sew
eral secretaries busy. Sometimes he would
| think he was sick and then he would retire
to his house and have himself denied to all
callers. His papers would be sent there to
| him and his shorthand man would be with
him. He would work lying down, and, his
secretary tells me- would do more than at
|
had a little room in a secluded part of the
! building to which he often slipped TO get
| away from his callers, and it was here that
| his hardest work was done. He was good
dictator, and he ratified off his opinions and
! letters at 200 words minute, walking up
! and down the floor as he did so Now and
then he would tear the air with his hands
as he gestured in accordance with the
thoughts that he uttered, and some of La
mars best speeches were thus made to his
| stenographer.
Lamar once told me that he could not
write easily, and his fingers turn into
! thumbs when he seizes the pen. He loses
! himself in dctaton, and his decisions as a
Judge will be worded in the purest of
| AnglO-Saxon. He Is a good story-teller,
and he has a reminisct II e between every
two bites of his dinner when he eats with a
| friend He is not a gourmand in his tastes,
but his stomach is large and not dainty. He
| lunches on hard-b boiled eggs with as much
gusto as on pate de fOie grdS, and he is
irregular as to his meals. He sometimes
takes his lunch at 10 o'clock i'll the morning,
and be often puts it off until 2 OF in the
| afternoon, and there have been cases when
he has forgotten both lunch and dinner in
his absorption i'll work or in thinking
Outside of his family and the classics,
Lamar has a hobby, and that hobby is Jer
sey cows. He has a herd on his farm IN
Mississippi, and he sold Senator Mcpherson
the bull that took the premium at the New
Jersey fairs. This bull was named "Sena-
tor Vest" and one of Lamars COWS is
named after Mrs. Senator Palmer. A
picture of this cow in oils hangs in Lamar's
dining-roOm Lamar lives at Oxford, and
| his residence is surrounded with trees
! have seen a painting of it with the COWS and
the calves gamboling before it, while
Lamar, with book in his hand, sits on the
steps and reads. Lamar is worth from
$4,000 to 100000, and not any more, | am
sure Much of his money is in his Jerseys,
! and he is not a man who has measured his
life by his dollars. He has not the accumu-
lative bent, and, though not great money
! Spender, he is not mOney-maker or saver.
He is more of a scholar and he reads sew
eral languages. He likes to talk of the
poets, and he is fond of newspaper reading.
He thinks there is no one like Byron, and he
quotes at times from the verses of even
Don Juan He is a good quoter, and his
big head is packed with gems from the news
papers He reads many papers, and he
watches the journals of the crossroads of
his State. The only real failure of his life
he thinks, was in newspaper work, aud this
was at the close of the war, when he
thought to set the country on fire by edito-
rails for the Oxford Fdicon. He carved
them out by the. yard, and the FdLco1t
printed them for a time. He looked for
quotations, but he told me in sadness that
the papers did not care for his editorials,
and they would pass by his three-column
articles of 300-word sentences on the "Liini-
tation of the Infinite and pick up the hasty
little squibs on the editor and copy them
| instead. After a while Mr.. Lamar's
writings got into the waste basket and. in
his own words he concluded that he was
not fitted for an edit rial writer, and |
imagine the editor thought 50, too.