The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1904-06-11

1 SlDte 10 the court III the aSCeTtalnIleEE
| of what the applicable law really is.
My great regret this evening is that
| the bench. to which this toast has been
| drunk. does not include, because of its
| non-existence, a tribunal entrusted with
the duty and clothed with the power
to determine effectively the greater con-
| troversies caused by uen-controvarsie
| between nations. To realize that in this
| twentieth century, al time when there
are SO many men and so many nations
| that call themselves civilized and that
deem themselves injured if regarded as
| being anything less than civilized, TO
| realize, 1 say, that at such a time the
worlds most momentous questions are
decided by resort to brute force, is
sad indeed. That an effective interna-
tional tribunal deserving and having
the respect of nations for its DEGREES
would be a most benefcent institution,
few, / think, will venture to deny. For
the lack of it thousands of innocent
men are today being killed with deadly
weapons discharged by the hands of
other men, a great many of those thus
killed being even ignorant. doubtless, of
the real issues involved. The wholesale
slaughter of 500 men by explosion and
drowning in one battIeship and of 500 in
field in one day by the aid of rapid-fire
guns and other instruments, is becom-
ing matter of such common occur
renee that many are doubtless begin
ming to think nothing of it and to re-
gard the methods pursued as quite
proper Perhaps such a tribunal as
I speak of, with jurisdiction over all
international question, however impor-
tant, is an unattainable ideal, unat- |
tainable because, chiefly, of the lack of !
power to enforce it's decisions. Per
haps. too, it will continue unattainable /
as long as true civilization does not ex-
list throughout the world to a greater I
degree than it does now. But if it ever |
does form a part of the judiciary, our
descendants may we'll feel double joy
in drinking toastS to the bench
HON. HENRY E. HIGHTON-THE
BAR.
1.-The Bar was responded to by Judge
Henry E, Highton in a lengthy but
discourse, as follows:
Mr.. President and Members of the
Bar Association: The toast assigned
to me is sufficiently comprehensive to
invite one of those speeches, which are
sometimes used in the last days of
Congress to beat an obnoxious meas
ure. 1t involves query impossible
to answer, except discursively, at a
dinner party, and this fact is prac-
ticaIIy recognized by the Statute of
of Limitations enacted by your Com
mittee A chimney sweeper's boy,
perched beside a high gallery in
courtroom, was put to sleep by Sir
~, h. nf
a prosy argument, and, like Eutychus,
whom ST. Paul preached to death, fell
down and was killed. He was not,
however, revived, and, in High
Jink's Court. at the instance of Lord
Eldon, Sir Thomas was indicted for
murder with "a certain blunt instru-
of no value, called A Long
Speech" I hope this banquet may not
be the cause of similar proceeding.
1.-The Bar is a toast that carries
US back to the times when Moses ap-
pointed judges at the instance of his
and when King Solo
mon announced his celebrated judg-
ment of the partition of a child. 1t
also suggests numerous forensic con-
that occurred in Greece, and
were duly embalmed by some of its
tragic writer's. More wildly still it
recalls the great legal battles of Rome,
when Cicero and Verres confronted
each other, and DE Officiis'' sounded a
note of justice. A swift leap carries
US forward to the richest age of the
English Bar and to the period of ener-
gy, depth and breadth, when, in the
United States, our great lawyers rose
to the highest level. An original Cali
fornian, like myself, though now trans
figured into the full glory of an Ha-
waiian citizen, might also Tevel in
of the Augustan epoch
IN the history of the Jurisprudence of
that advancing State.
The solemnities of the Bar are
numerous and transfixing. Everybody
has been impressed by them. The lay
world, however, does not comprehend
It's function as a reservoir of wit and
hurnor 1t may be set down as an
axiomatic truth that a man who never
smiles or who is incapable of a roar
Of laughter cannot be converted into
4 lawyer. I remember one young man,
whose seriousness was so intense that
he almost drifted into confirmed :
His name was Bliss,
which was the antithesis of his tenn
permanent, and once, before Judge I
Field he appealed to the lawyer on |
the other side as to his superior '
of local rules" His OPP
1onent retorted:
Where Ignorance is Bliss, tits folly {
% be WISE
While Court and bystanders roared,
he young gentleman, with a face that
ooked as if he had just heard of the {
leath of a near relative, almost broke
MS back in bowling his acknowledge
nent.
Lord Erskine was master of loren ]
sic eloquence, but wit and humor /
lowed from him in brilliant streams. !
He once delivered an opinion that an ]
action would not lie unless the wit
lesses did. On another occasion, be-
fore a court, Mingay complained of {
some rusty hay in a manger, to which,
he said, 1.-The horse demurred." Frs
kline for the defendant, suggested that {
he quadruped should have gone to i
he country friend told him that I