Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-11-20
SUCCESS OF SH|RAS.
The Pittsburg Justice Is TAX
ing High Rank in the
Supreme Court.
HIS INITIAL DECISIONS
Have Created a Good Impression at
the National Capital.
DETAILS OF HIS FIRST CASE,
Which Was Very Important One in Penn
sylyania Practice.
SOME FACTS ABOUT HIS ASSOCIATES

WASHINGTON, Now ia change Of
administration naturally directs attention
to the Supreme Court. and the possibility
Of the shifting of its personnel during the
ensuing four years. The average young
lawyer, burdened or blessed with sheep
skin of two years age, might possibly be
pardoned for entertaining ideas concerning
political pull. Especially SO when he
contemplates his brefess career and then
turns with longing eyes upon some of the
many high judicial positions which, as
Uncle Sans gift, carry with them fat sal
aries and perquisites, to say nothing of
continuance in Office for, life, or at least
during good behavior
StraIghtway he may want to become a
politician OF influence himself and finally a
lawyer with reputation enough to capture a
seat on the bench of the United States Su-
preme Court some day, when a vacancy
occurs in the natural order of things. The
ambition of the disciple of Blackstone is
plausible enough, but if he imagines that a
political pull is everything needful, the
sheepskin possessor is likely to realize in
wears to come that the royal road to Su-
preme Court JUSTICES seat is very much a
myth, and at best an exceedingly stony
thoroughfsre.
Success of the Pittsburg Justice.
Pennsylvania son on the Supreme Bench
is the neophyte Of the nine justices.
Justice Shiras has occupied his new official
position barely two months yet, but the
press wags at the Capital, who at first made
witty illusions to the cut OF the judicial
side-whiskers in comparison with Don
a. Il A. L.
had their shafts blunted since the Pittsburg
jurist delivered his two initial opinions
several weeks ago. Ali political considera-
tions aside, President Harrison's appoint
ment to the Supreme Court is generally
commended
Justice Shiras is q lawyer with record,
too, and outside of the most erudite of
Pennsylvania advocates it may not be gen.
orally known that to him belongs the prac-
teal credit of unearthing a common law
statute which, since the State Supreme
Court ruled upon it according to his argued
Interpretation over % years ago, has ma
teriallv revolutionized the customs accepted
in the keystone State up to that time rela-
tive to a married mans disposition of his
real estate.
His First Case a Good One.
The case, which was Justice Shiras' very
first after beginning practice in Pittsburg,
is cited at length in the Pennsylvania re-
ports, and is known as ''Lonsdale's appeal"
A wealthy old English resident of the city
was advised by his physicians that heart
disease might carry him off at any time, and
having no near relatives in the United
States except his wife and a niece of the
latter, whom he heartily disliked, the old
man concocted a scheme whereby he could
SO dispose OF his property as to prevent it
ultimately falling into the hands of the
niece after the death of himself and wife.
He accordingly sold his realty aud invested
the proceeds in bonds and mortgages, the
latter Of which he assigned to trustees for
the benefit of his brothers in England
Lonsdale retained the bonds himself and
only a small percentage of personality was
lett the wife bv will. The inventory filed
bv the executor at his death included only
the bonds in question, and the widow at
once secured the services of the new JUS
tice of the Supreme Court for the purpose
Of contesting the document.
Previous to that time the courts had al
ways held as incontestable mans right to
dispose of all his property as he pleased,
but the attacking lawyer made Lonsdale's
action out case of what was legally known |
as fraud upon the custom in the old |
English laws. The Supreme Court upheld |
his view of the case, and 'Lonsdale's ap- |
peal" went down on the records as estab- |
fishing a new wrinkle in estate procedure
which, Justice Shlras saws, the Pennsvlva- |
mia courts seem, however, to have since !
disregarded on occasion. Nevertheless, his |
first case changed the material disposition |
OF an estate valued at $780, ,000 and the re- |
sultant fee obvlated the usual Young law
yer's necessity of hunting practice before a |
justice Of the peace or in police court.
Wager Made by Fuller.
If you have visited the Supreme Court |
room no doubt you did not imagine that the |
venerable looking Chief Justice Fuller ever |
Nagered pair of boots on the outcome of a |
case-he won them, too, by the wav-and |
perhaDs it may not have occurred to vou as 1
possibility that one Justice of the number |
was actually Judge before he had tried his |
first case either tor plaintiff or defendant. |
1t is true many of those things happened /
30, 40 and almost so years ago, and some of /
those grave Judges were not compelled to |
waste their elOquence in a township court,
while on the contrary their initial efforts |
were put forth on issues which have since /
become precedents and are quoted as basis /
OF subsequent decisions.
But, if in the aggregate the nine first |
cases covered no large interests and fees |
and retaincrs were correspondingly small.
the fact still remains that the Justices of tile
United States Suprems Court were all
young lawyers once, and, as Mr.. Justice
Brewer said, "the recollection of a first
victory in the legal arena seems as pleasing
as a subsequent one, which enriched the /
pIeader by thousands"
1t was somewhere in the middle tift,es
wav up in Augusta, Me-, where a Young
college graduate named Melville W. Fuller
was admitted TO the bar in his native State
He had 6 natural inclination for the law.
but never dreamed in the widest flights of
his Imagination that in little more than a
quarter of a century TO come he should have
achieved such prominence as lawyer that
the President Of the United States would
appoint him Chief Justice of the Supreme
Court He certainly had no such idea when
be tried his first case alone. And that case
the Chief Justice likes to talk about even
now, for it brought HIM his first fee-a s.
gold piece, which was treasured as his
'lucky coin" months afterward.
Fifty-One Years in the Law
On January /. 1893, 81 years will have
elapsed since Justice Samuel Blatchford
left the care Of his legal preceptor in AL
banv, n Y, with certificate for efficiency
in Blackstone theories in his pocket His
primal effort was in the interests of the
Bank Of England, and his spurs were won
in the successful foreclosing OF mortgage
and collection of its face value, after a
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