The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-07-21
en Meredith says


 upon earth
 Blessed hour of our dinners! The land
 of his birth.
 The face of his first love. the bills that
 he owes. %ea
 The twaddle. of friends and the venom The sermon he heard when to church The money he borrowed. the money he
 spent
 All of these things a, man, believe,
 may forget,
 And not be the worse for forgetting,
 but yet r. Never. never. oh. never .earth's luckiest
 sinner
 Hath unpunished forgotten the, hour of
 his dinner!s
 That is probably true as to the aver age man. Besides his dinner, there is 1t least another thing lawyer never ,orgets while memroy holds her sway, and that is his first case. To him that Is what the crossing of the Rubicon was to Caesar, and opens up q new world. He is no longer a neophyte. He is a full fiedged' member of an hon prable and lucrative profession FIX perience meetings'' as to first cases are frequently held in the cloakroom. Gen iral John w. Noble, splendid lawyer, who was Secretary of the Interior n- der the younger Harrison thus de- scribes his first case:
 My first case? This is indeed long call, but you may be sure l renieiater it. The year 1885 found me in St. LoIis. a graduate oe Yale, admitted 10 the bar first at Columbus. O., and soon after at St. Louis. haVing been examin- ed there by Judge Alexander Hamilton. I could have drawn draft on tme and paid it easily, for had plenty or timei Other means were .scant. mus sitting in the criminal court one day, came my first case in court Of record. The Criminal Court was then located at the southeast corner of Sixth ana Market streets, on the second noor or a two story brick building, and the old stone jail was just in the rear of 1t on the block there. James R. Lackland was judge, and Henry A. Clover was circuit attorney IThad become ac- quainted with Judge Lackland sum- ciently for him to recognize me. A case was called wherein the defendant was charged with murder, and, he being poor and without counselA the Judge spoke out, 1t seemed very loud to, me, MT. Noble, you will take this mans case and defend him..
 The case was continued to give chance for preparation. I went over to thesiail with the defendant and talk the matter .~oveF.sss. His name was Middleton. and the man he had shot was called Buffalo Frank, French man, who spent most of his time out on the plains and came to St. Lotus occasionally and then raised good deal Of disturbance. Middleton vas a member of a fire engine company. The fire engines i'll those days were worked hv hand and the engine houses were occupied by young fellows who were not able to throw Into the service all the virtues for the small pay they re- ceived. Buffalo Frank frequented these places. and there arose Quarrel between him and the defendant apout a woman. and the. tragedy occurred down about Second and Spruce streets Buffalo Frank pursued Middleton with a spanner, was close upon him and about to strike him with this dead lv weapon when Middleton as he ran drew an old brass single barreled pis- tol and. reaching with his right arm under his left. fired and the ball went through the heart of his assallant, Who fell dead in his tracks.
 .'This fact was the alleged crime. Now. that spanner was the central fact in the case. A spanner is wrench with a curve to fit the bronze joints of a water hose so as to fasten or unfas- ten it. It has a handle of foot or more, and this particular spanner was 30 large and so heavy that 1t was known to all the boys who ran with the machine for they spent their time mostly discussing such matters as related to the hose. the engine and themselves. I went about among the young fellows for many days and got my witnesses and was ready with all the facts.
 q thought it would be a good plan for the witness who vas to identify the spanner to drop it. so as to impress the jury with it's weight. and so as he sat on the high chair where the wit nesses were then placed drop it he did, and it bounced the boards at his feet and raised a great dust. It was a heavy play. The result on all the evi- dence was that Judge Lackland in etructed that 1t was clear case of self defense. and under his direction a verdict of not guilty was rendered without the jury leaving the box.
 of that could have been achieved in a smaller town 1t would have been deemed a great victory and of great advantage to heypung lawyer, but in this great city 1t was unnoticed.
 During the imprisonment of Middle ton he had been constantly visited py his old and affectionate mother. She said her son did not like to be alone in the dark in prison, and out Of my means l supplied him with candles. When he was acquitted he shook my hand cordially and said if he lived he would pay me a good fee. He went on a steamboat to New Orleans as deck- hand. and as he walked down the plank to the shore soon after his ar rival there he was shot and killed, pos sibly by some friend of Buffalo Frank. Thus the fee was also eliminated. the candles extinguished. and you have the memories of my first case of 40 years ago. I think felt more anxiety and slept less during the whole time before his acquittal than my client did
 Senator George Graham Vests Hot Springs interview has brought him into prominence again. Frank c. Frayne tells this anecdote of him:
 'In October. 1876, Senator Vest made A political speech in the courthouse at Warrensburg one evening while in at- tendance upon a term of the Johnson County Circuit Court. The courtroom was packed almost to suffocation, and Vest was in his happiest vein. In the audience was an editor who disliked Vest both personally and politically, and during the speech he frequently in- terrupted Vest with questions. To the amazenent of everybody, the speaker