The Tupelo journal. (Tupelo, Miss.) 1876-1924, 1905-03-10

At the request of many who
did not hear my speech on the
| first day of court, and of some
who did, | have prepared same
for publication.
w. L. CLAYTON.
Mr.. Chairman and Fellow Citi-
zens;
The old has passed away, and
behold! all things have become
new. Tupelo and Lee county
have donned their new habilia-
ments. In our county many of the
old residences and homesteads,
which have come down to us
from the days of the Colbert
brothers, have passed out of ex-
istence, and new and more mod
ern ones have taken their places.
Tupelo, especially, has cast off
the old and clothed herself in
new apparel. The old churches
have been cast to the moles and
the bats, and new and greater
ones have taken their places.
Many of the old residences have
been pulled down and replaced
by more commodious mansions;
and one by one the old faces
have vanished, and new ones
have come among us. And now,
sir, the old Court House, around
whose history cluster many fond
memories, hath passed into his
tory, and is succeeded by this
magnificent structure, which we
today dedicate to the God of
Justice. In a general way, we
may say, the fond and cherished
memories of the old are ever a
benediction to US; but sir to one
who stands as | do to day, as the
last representative of the old,
the crowding scenes are almost
too much forme. Amid the wreck
and ruin of the old, stand in the
new as it's only remaining repres
entative, like some tree in the
midst of the field, whose branches
have been Topped and whose bark
has fallen away from age and
decay, looking and listening foD
the last storm that shall cast
it to the ground forever. When,
sir, forget the new, and the old
comes crowding in upon me in
panoramic view, painting the
scenes of long ago,
81 feel like one who tread alone
Some banquet hall deserted,
Whose light are fled, whose garlands
dead,
And all but he deserted"
My memory streches over and
beyond the old here, and fixes it's
grasp upon the old county Of
Itawamba, from whose territory
most of ours was acquired in the
making of our own county, and
there, on the first Monday of,
March, 1859, the lamentet Gen.
Finley and were admitted to the
bar as practitioners of law in the
old court house at old Fulton, and
were received into a galaxy of
noble spirits of the old time gen.
tlemen, who were ready toreceiye
us into the arms of their brother
hood. Sir, if had but one of those
noble spirits standing by my side
in the flesh here and now, | would
say to him
':Fling me picture" Of those scenes,
"For well | know thou canst" and
"I'll listen till my fancy hears
| The clang of swords, the crash OF spears
And my free spirit burst away,
| AS if it scared from battle fray"
But, sir, in this respect l am
not so we'll situated as the outlaw
ed chieften, Roderick Dhue, for
he had the minstrel Allen Bane,
from the lonely lake and classic
isle to paint the scenes when met
Ibis clan the Saxon might, y
and, when death had released
him from the guardroom at Stir
ling castle, to pour the weird re-
quinn DER his bier, and mourn
"clan Alpin's honored pine. "
But, being the only one left re-
naming, in default of comrade,
who could do it better, / must in
my feeble way paint you picture
Of the old. Yonder at the right,
sits Major w. w. Gather, with
lofty forehead, erect as a chieftan,
head and body careened backward
a comley face, calm and unruf.
fled amid every storm of forensic
contest, having a loveable dispo-
sition, a judicial mind, and a home
loving look that was a benedic-
ton to all who came in touch with
| him.
i Next to him was the then Dis
trict Attorney, Russell O. Beene,
the prince of good fellows, with
hair unkept and careless Of
dress, but with a proud and lofty
step, who, in his palmiest days
| was the peer of any prosecuting
! attorney that ever held the office