Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-01-07

Hawkins and host of others too numerous
to mention.
1.-THE best regulated army must and will
have its discouragements. Yet, in compare
son of late we have had but few. True,
some OF our comrades are in ward, and some
have fallen by the way-Palmer, Koch,
Mccullough, and Wilson. They sleep their
last sleep; they have fought their last bat
tie; no sound can wake them to glory again.
81 have said that we are marching for the
goal, and here again another question
arises. What is the goal so much desired
| by us? No grander science exists than that
of the law. No nobler profession can be
adopted than that which we have espoused.
Men, where left to themselves, will follow
| the bent of their minds and hearts for evil
or good, but when ranked and filed shoulder
to shoulder and marching to the music of a
better profession. the lower will be lifted to
the higher plane. Hence our association;
the objects are pure and elevating. We'll
come, one and sll-the judges with the
rank and file-to join us In our noble pur-
pose.
"we desire, 1 say, the elevation of the
profession. Six stadia of the first parasang
| of this years march have been past; to ac-
complish our object let us all strive to be
kind and courteous to each other Sin honor
preierring one another the Judges can help
! the practitioners, and they in turn the
Court Examsples are numerous. You
can recall them at will.
And now with a parting word: Let me
use the language of another: The great
wheel of time revolves with unceasing regu-
larity; the older we become the more rapidly
the years appear to slip away; behind us is
the dawn; before us is the sitting sun. Time
/ haQra IN fhrOuuh fair NriD0S and fOul.
little by little, day by day, we near our
journeys end
Little by little the time goes bv, short if
you sing through it. long if you sigh.
Little by little-an hour, day, gone with
the years that have vanished away"
The next speech was by Judge Stowe ''On
the Courts" 1t was learned address, and
elected hearty applause. The speech is
given below in full, and was as follows:
JUDGE IS SPEECH.
GENTLEMEN-If there is any one thing that
I particularly enjoy it is to make speech, es-
pecially after an elaborate and hearty dinner.
In such a case q mans whole system is so
charged with intellectual electricity that he
has only to open his lips and tropes and meta
phors and winged Words come leaping out
like Minerva from the head of Jupiter. or
Venus from the foam Of the sea-fun of life
and beauty.
So, must declare and aver" on the present
occasion that nothing has delighted me SO
much for long time as to have the opportu-
nifty to 'speechify" this evening. But before
commence. l wish it distinctly understood by
all present that what may say will be no care
fully studied grafton, written and conned over
in my library but simply the expression of an
overfowing brain and tull stomach, unpremed-
itated and unprepared, or as the ghost in Ham
let has it disappointed" If had known for
the last six months that 1 was expected to
speak to you tonight, / might have prepared
something that would have been entertaining
and instructive to you. and an honor to myself,
but as it has only been about one-half that
number of weeks that time since your Secre-
tary gave me notice that / must 'orate" to-
night, at once made up my mind, owing to
shortness of time, of course, and inasmuch as
true eloquence must be the breath of the Occa-
sion, that what l said should be entirely i'm
promptu, born of opportunity-coming from
above and around-and without any premedi-
tation or malice aforethought express or i'm
piled" Therefore, as is the custom of all our
great eItemporaneous after-dinner orators,
have carefully prepared and written out at
length few remarks for this evening, which
for fear that / should forget them if
tried to commit them to memory (as
1 most certainly would) and because 1
was afraid to attempt to read them
from my own abominable manuscript, l have
had carefully printed by typewriter, so that
they may serve for present as well as future
reference, and be preserved for the enlighten-
ment of coming generations of well-fed law
yers 'In consimih casu." But l thought
heard someone say few minutes since: The
courts VAST ever in court, shepherd No
trulyl Then thou art damned Thou art in
parlous state, shepherd"
TWAS NOT HIS EXPERIENCE.
wish to say just here that this idea does
not exactly conform to my own experience.
should have been more inclined to think
that the fellow that had been in court. very
often at least (of course 1 mean as a suItor),
was the one who was in the ''parlous state"
and not the other, but as you have given me
my text and mnst take 10 as find it, have
to say that it will strike most persons as some
what curious that they should stand in SO dam
gerous a condition as suggested because they
had never been in court. And if any of you
had been present and heard the conversation
Just quoted by your ''toastmaster" he would
have been likely to suspect that some lawyer
not, of course, belonging to this Bar Associa-
tion-but some other lawyer, had hired Touch
stone to seduce the poor shepherd into some
speculative lawsuit such, for example, as
bringing an action on the shares AGAINST some
raScally railroad company for killing one Of
his sheep which had, by his negligence, been
permitted to stray upon the track" and, as
the ghost hereinbefore mentioned. would say,
''unhouselrd and unanel'ed" !" made mutton of.
But when he had heard himfurther say, why,
if thou never vast in court, thou never saw'st
good manners" /" he would more likely De con-
vinced that some practical but stupid hoax
was sought to be imposed upon the unsophis-
ucated granger. For, according to my observ
alton, if the "dev1l must be shamed and
the truth told, the strict decorum and good
manners" which so distinguished the courts
of I'VE olden time'' seem to have gone into the
grave of the feudal system and special plead
ings, and now like them only whisper sadly to
heaven with still small voice" against the
deep "damnation of their taking off, If any
of you, gentlemen. have any serious misgivings
on the subject just come up to court some
Saturday morning with an important petition
that you are anxious the Court shall under
stand and try to read it so that you can be
heard. and you will soon see how it is yourself.
A COURT DEFINED.
But, going back to the subject Of our text:
What is a court If we take the definition of
Blackstone. and answer that it is "a place
where justice is judicially administered" many
would think that 1t was some terra ineognita." !"
some fabled island of the sea, on which mortal
foot had never trod. But II we define it to be
place where judges sit and lawyers congre-
gate and talk and wrangle, and occasionally
abuse the newspapers and each other. or, as
BuIrell puts it call it san organized body with
defined powers, meeting at certain times and
places for the hearing of causes and other mat
ters brought before it, aided by attorneys and
counsel to present and manage the business"
both the untutored kind and the philosophic
dreamer, who thinks Justice a mere abstrac-
ton and name, knows what we mean.
History tells us that before William I. had
completed his subjugation of England, he es-
tablished grand central tribunal for the
whole realm, which was to be not only a court
of appeal, but a court where all cases of in
cided. This was called Curia Regis, and some
times Aula Regis because it assembled in the
Kings palace. The great officers of the
State, the Mareschal, the Constable the
Seneschal the Chamberlain and the Treas
urer were the Judges, and over them
presided the Grand Judiciary. Upon substan-
TALLY the same footing the administration of
justice continued for some 200 years. although
for greater convenience causes were committed
to different committees of the Aula Regis, to
which it is said may be traced the Court of
Kings Bench, Common Pleas, Exchequer and
the Court of Chancery. At length Edward L
sometimes called the English JuStiniau''-
systematized and reformed the principles of
English Jurisprudence, and finally framed the
courts for the administration OF Justice as they
remained for six centuries, so that Blackstone
says: "In Edwards time the law did receive so
sudden perfection that Sir Mathew Hale does
not scruple to affirm that more was done in the
first l3 years of his reign to settle and estab-
lish the distributive justice of the kingdom
than in all the ages since put together"
Upon these foundations our system of juris-
prudence is built to-day, and you gentlemen,
are now studying the same general principles
and seeking 10 enforce the same general rules
Of and aQuitV in the VaT-iOuS Of lie /