The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1903-09-06

gate IN the constitutional convention
when the report of the Committee on
State Seal was read, in stead of 'Vo-
lens ct Potens, the motto of Nevada
ought to be 'Nolens Volens. " 1t was
this same delegate who insisted that
in consequence of the need Of legisla-
ton it would be we'll to provide that
for the first two years the legislature
shall hold it's biennial sessions an
nually."
The public opinion of that day con-
corning the judicial Tribunals Of Ne
vada Territory was inadvertently but
aptly expressed by a newly appointed
bailiff of the Territorial Supreme Court.
He was long, lean gentleman, of great
gravity and dignity of demeanor, with
a sonorous voice, most imposing man |
ner, and an exalted idea of the i'm
portance of his Office. 1t was his duty
at the beginning of the term to an
nounce to the assembled bar of the |
Territory that it's highest judicial tri- |
bunal was open for business. No par |
ticular formula had been prescribed for
such announcement, and it had not
occurred to Baron Pumpernickel," as |
the bailiff was nicknamed, that it would |
be all sufficient to say to the lawyers
and litigants in waiting "Gentlemen, |
the Supreme Court" So, swelling |
with his Importance, the Baron stretch |
ed forth his arm:-"Oyez, oyez, oyez,"
he cried, THE Honorable the Supreme |
Court of the Territory of Nevada is
now in session-God help the people of
the Territory of Nevada."
A A A
Among the lesser lights of the bar of
that day was Tom Cox. He was some
what too bibulous and too scattering
to achieve a leading practice in Vir-
ginia City, but in the neighboring dis
trict of which Washoe City was the
county seat, he was facile princeps.
He was a North Carolinian, a college
graduate, a student first of divinity.
later of medicine and lastly of law. He
was a typical ''forty-niner" for he had
been miner, lumberman and team
ster, as well as doctor, preacher and
a lawyer. He was an all around sport
and as fond of fun as boy. He was
adroit and eloquent at the bar or on
the hustings, and it was his boast that
he could with equal facility draw a
complicated bill in equity without an
erasure or an interlineation, and that
with a dragon revolver he could shoot
the head off a chicken at twenty PAGES.
He was as free to borrow your money
when you had any as he was to loan
you his own-when he had any and he
never drew a solvent breath from Mon
day morning to Saturday night. He
occupied dilapidated one story build
ing in Washce City where he establish
ed his law office in the front room.
while in the rear apartments he located
his living rooms, where he did his own
cooking and lived sometimes alone, and
sometimes with companion who anne
liorated the acerbities of his bachelor
life.
The speech of Tom Cox on the action
of Negus against the Ophir Company
is a Nevadan classic. Gentlemen of
the Jury said he, This case has been
on the calendar of the Court for four
years, and for one reason and another
its trial has been postponed many times,
at the instance first of the plaintiff
and then of the defendant. The at
torneys who brought the suit against
the scene of human activities, one of
them peaceably and the other forcibly,
and | have taken their place, while the
original attorneys for defendant now
wear the toga and the ermine. Many
changes have taken place since Negus
was driven from his wood ranch by
the defendants. When this action was
instituted the Ophir Company was the
incorporate high yu Muck a Muck of
the sage brush. Its stock sold for four
thousand dollars a foot--it paid month
ly dividends on each foot of one hun
dred and fifty dollars. 1t had a brick
house at its reduction works which
were surrounded by a high board fence
to exclude the gaze of the vulgar. It
built a bridge across that muddy pond,
which when it has any water in it, is
called Lake Washoe, so that when the
trustees came down every Saturday
for their wine dinner they We're not OBJ
liged to go around the alleged lake to
get there.
After their wine dinners the trus-
tees occupied the night and sometimes
the entire Sabbath in playing the great
American game with blue chips and a
ceiling limit. The Ophir had United
States Senator and a United States
District Judge for its attorneys and it's
stockholders walked along snuffing the
stars. Now, gentlemen of the jury,
how have the mighty fallen. Ophir
stock has dropped from four thousand
to one hundred dollars per share
The dividends have ceased. The de-
cayed and ultraviolet bridge across
the diminished lake has become useful
chiefly as a shelter for young wild
ducks. while their pin feathers are
growing. The high fence has fallen
so low that the lowliest wood-packing
jackass of the ridge can straddle it. the
pop of champa gne corks is heard no
more in the dismantled brick house.
and when the detected trustees occa-
sionally assemble there they use beans
for chips with one cent ante, and ten
cents limit. and each director squeaIing
for a sight ali the time. The great
Ophfr Company has struck hot water
and desert sand in its mine and came
down to Whitman and Fitch for
lamps"
There was much activity in the po-
litical arena in Nevada and elsewhere
in the late sixties, and in the absence