The San Francisco call., 1895-10-17
of whose eccentricities he spoke in court

of whose eccentricities he spoke in court
yesterday.
Judge Lawton was on the stand all the
morning under cross and re-cross examina-
ton by Judge Hayne. for the mplainants,
and redirect examination by Attorney
Philbrook for the defense.
He drew up will Tor DR.. Merritt, and
was surprised when, few days after the
doctors death, later holographic will
was probated and he found himself an ex-
ecutor He was in San Jose at the time
helping Judge Stanly in his candidacy at
the Democratic Convention for Chief JUS
tice, and had hurried down there immedi-
ately after the funeral, at which he was
pall-bearer.
Shortly after this will was opened he as
sured Mrs Garcelon that there was no
great fear of its being broken. 1t was his
suggestion to Mrs. Garcelon that Judge
Hamilton be added to her attorneys, the
firm OF Stanly, Stone & Hayes. Later,
after election day. he told Judge Stanly
that he thought it would be best to have
the estate incorporated; and he mentioned
to Mrs. Garcelon that a corporation or
syndicate could better protect the prop
erty, as there would be a defensive
strength that would make ''the boys and
their attorneys less willing to begin con-
test.
But Mrs. Garcelon objected. The idea
was that she should furnish the principal
stock and that the other heirs should be
parties to the corporation.
The final compromise papers giving the
nephews $500, 900 in settlement of their
claims on the Merritt estate were read to
Mrs. Garcelon at her house in the presence
of Judges Lawton, Stanly and Hamilton
AT one time Mrs. Garcelon seemed to
have been made apprehenslve through some
ones suggestion that Judge Lawton would
bring in extra charges as an executor of
the Merritt estate and he hastened to as
sure her that his reward was fixed by law
and that any services legally or otherwise
that he might render for her would be
gratuitous.
When StaEly, Stone and Hayes and
Hamilton presented a bill for $4,000 for
five months legal services Judge Lawton
told Mrs. Garcelon that he thought it was
too much, particularly as there had been
little work done in the first period of the
settlement of the Merritt estate; but the
bill was paid and Lawton, as an executor,
signed the check.
The witness could not remember ever
having published an interview regarding
these fees. But something made Judge
Stanly turn upon him when as an execu-
tor, he was on the witness-stand in the
Oakland court. On that occasion Judge
Stanly requested to have him removed as
an executor on the grounds of want of in
tegrity and habitual intemperance.
Then the Stanly -Lawton friendship was
irreparably ruptured. Judge Lawton wrote
a long interview that he had published in
the Oakland Times. In it he reviewed his
own career, and rejolced that the people of
California had been so wise as to save the
honor of the bench by defeating Judge
Stanly for the Chief Justiceship by big
5000 majority, and he apologized for ever
having taken any part in his campaign.
%,ltI Of loz-.,
experience of twenty years in New York,
particularly in probate matters; of his
Judgeship in Albany; of his unsolicited
appointment to the SUPPLEMENTARY of the
San Francisco Mint shortly after his arrival
in this State, in 1874, for his health. There
was also reference to Stanly's having
evaded him with what he termed spry-
to the profession he represented.
When Judge Hayne put the question to
Judge Lawton yesterday, care you a
friend of Judge Stanly?" the answer came
sharp and decided, II am not
Lawton did not know now many collat-
eral relatives he had, but he thought the
maximum would not exceed twenty. There
were only three or four cousins and second
cousins whose names he could recall.
The afternoon session began with the
evidence of Mrs. Mary A. Riley, and when
court adjourned for this morning the
cross-examination of the Garcelon coach
man had just begun.
Mrs. Riley told of two conversations she
had had with Mrs. Garcelon, one in June
or July, 1891, and the other only about
five weeks before her death. On the first
occasion Mrs. Garcelon was coming out of
an Oakland furniture store, and she said
that she was fixing up her house for the
last time; that it was no more than right
that a Merritt should occupy it after her;
that she was feeling i'll, and had taken
morphine prescribed by DR.. Agard to re-
lieve the pain in her head; that it had
been only worry and care since her broth
er's death; that Judge Stanly wanted her
to make deed of trust, and that Stephen
burlington was after her day and night to
sign the papers, and that she did sign in
order to have freedom and rest during the
few remaining years of her life.
In the last conversation she did not ap-
pear so weak as on the OCCASION of the
earlier talk on the sidewalk, nor did she
cry then though she had done so before.
She repeated in substance her earlier re-
remarks, and added that she wanted to
leave "the boys" $4,000 but that Judge
Stanley objected, on the ground that they
had been amply provided for with the
$500,000.
She confided to Mrs. Riley that when she