The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-05-19
PERSONAL Y OF
 PLUSH TIME" BALDWIN
Continued from Page ID

procedure. no occupation or profession
 save the ministry is omitted from tn,
 gallery of daubs." The ministry bare ly escapes in the character of the De- dantic old-field schoolmaster, Burw ell Shines. "a member of the Methodist
 Episcopal, otherwise called Wesleyan
 persuasion of Christian individuals, who. when pursued by mischief -mak- CTS. heard the murderous expression shouted at him. Kill Shadbeily with his praying clothes on!" This omission must have been due to a concealed bump of excessive reverence on the cranium of the author, for from those days as many jokes involving Meth odist and Baptist preachers have come down as of any other class.
 The characters and caricatures that commend themselves with overflowing fun and merriment are many; the con- ceited stripling lawyer who is opposing counsel in a suit for islander, flies in dismay and disgrace before the furiou,
 onslaughts and whitening ridicule old Caesar kasm, known to the wags of the bar a sold Sar Kasm; the glut- tor, Squire, A,,n who is artfully and wickedly Deprived of his fritters; Cave Burton. the professional teller of sto- ries without point or end; the naughty
 
 might breathe in Alabama, but lived in
 Virginia and never got acclimated else where nor lost citizenship to the old home. where their treasure was and their heart also; the legal biography of Simon Suggs, Jr., type of the men, dacious and roguish lawyer; the pre- tentious and ali sufficient visitor to New Orleans. who, while at college in Knoxville. Tenn, had learned all the usages of polite society in the best hotels and circles. but drank pineap- pie sop from a finger bowl at the St. Charles Hotel. the bullying coward, who. in furnishing the "weepins" for a duel provoked with a deinure son of Adam. by mistake or intent, handed the loaded pistol to his combatant; the shrewd. obliging gentleman of the old school. Francis Strother; the brow beating and supercillious lawyer; the Irish wit of Patrick McFayden and Jo Heyfron: the hung court over the jackass leaving it's imperishaDle legacy of heartburnings and excitement in the quiet village of Splitskull Sam Hele. who ran the Yankee school "marm" out of Livingston by his har- rowing descriptions of the gross, in- herited wickedness of the population, incorrigibly steeped in the science of criminology and perfectly practiced in the whole catalogue of crimes; the pet tifogging lawyer, who hung about the jail begging criminals to entrust their causes to him, and insisting on the plea of an old friendship that never existed; the stingy client, who sought advice as to instituting a suit for slan- der against a neighbor who had bidder him kiss his foot.
 Not a few of the incidents sketched find their counterpart or parallel upon the pages of Alabama and Mississippi history. In Garrett's "Reminiscences" the account of Columbus w. Lee and the young legislator, of Francis Strother Lyon and the debtor, and of Judge Huger and the Kentucky mule driver. have striking features in com mon respectively with old Caesar Kasm and the younger barrister, Francis Strother and Jemmy O. of the Sumter bar. and Paul Beechim in the pine apple sop adventure; while in Clai- borne's History of Mississippi" the sketch of Franklin E. Hummer mar rating the incident of his entertain ment at the Frenchmans inn and bar, suggests the lavish prodigality of Ovid Bolus, who treats a regiment and charters grocery for a day, knowing that he had not one cent with which to pay the owner.
 As the period around which to weave his sketches Baldwin took the so-called shinplaster era, when commerce flour ished upon the fictitious basis of uni versal credit and indefinite extension. Though he introduced pictures of the wildness of speculation and boldness of adventure that characterized the times, though he made disclosures of the frail- f .f fr, 6GH tr1, T business peculation, yet above the weakness and wickedness with which they sported, above the fun and the mirth with which he invested them all, there runs the strong, sturdy, practical insight and wisdom of the man of the world which the man of letters has clothed with the imagery of a glowing and illustrated with apt reference from the masterpieces of lit erature. The Bible, Anacreon and Ho- mer, Shakespeare and Milton, Burns and Goldsmith, Bulwer and Dickens, Johnson and Carlyle, Franklin and Emerson, the storehouses of English and American history, are appropri- ated for ready use.
 Baldwin's other book, Party Lead ers," is entirely different in treatment and purpose. Sketches of Jefferson A@dAlilVii, OoIhStIls Sldy anu are given, presenting in bold outline and pleasing discussion these distin- glished personages and the prominent events in the country's history with which their names are associated. If it did nothing else. in it's grasp of thought and clearness of style the work would exhibit the versatility of the author, who could with equal .ase transfer his thought and pen from gay to grave themes.
 Moved to Mobile-In the autumn of 1858 Baldwin moved to Mobile and be- came partner of Hon. Philip Phillips, an influential member of that bar who acquired considerable reputation az a statesman. Having been disappointed in his hopes of political preferm1nt, and seized by the currents that were drawing men of all classes, trades and professions to California, he moved to that State in 1854. There he saw the revival of flush times" due to the gold excitement. In October 1858, he was elected judge of the Supreme Court, and held the position ID to January, 1862, when he resigned and resumed the practive of law. As a member of this high tribunal, the Hon. stephen J. Field. who sat with him as chief justice and was afterwards a justice of the United States Supreme Court, says of him in "Reminiscences of Early Days in California" He was a profound lawyer, and some of his opinions are models of style and reas- oning."
 During the civil war he went to to ask permission of the to visit his aged parents,