The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1914-07-10
BIRTHDAY OF BLACKSTONE

Oysters have a holiday of their own, 'fShellhsh Day. bat lawyers. their opposites in point of loquacityS have not a single festival If the barr4s- ters Of the English speaking world should desire an annual celebration peculiar to the profession which has produced so many great public men, they could not fix a more zppropriate date than the tenth of July. To-day marks the anniversary of the birth of the immortal Sir William Blackstone, and also that of St George Tucker, the Virginia Jurist who has been call- ed 'sthe Blackstone of America
 ftAccording to Blackstone is a phrase that stands for authority al- most as final as that represented in other aetfvfties by Hoyle and the Mar quis of Queen nsberry.s The great Eng lishS Jurist was born in London on July 10, 1723, and was called to the bar at the age of twenty-three. As a practicing barrister he was a faf1- ure. For seven years he attended the Westminster law courts without suc- cess. He then retired to Oxford, his alma mater where he lectured on the law, and. became the first viner- ian professor Next year will mark the 50th anniversary of the publica- ton of the first volume of the famous 'sConmentaries on the Laws of Eng land,' a work which won for Black stone the foremost place in the his tory of English law.
 Among the 9discfp1es of Black stoness one of the most eminent on this side of the Atlantic was St, George Tucker, who was born in Bermude on July 10, I752. When Blackstone died in 17SO, Tucker. who had gradu- ated at the College Of William and Mary and studied law, was a soldier in the army of the revolution. He planned and assisted personallysfn the seizure of a large amount Of stores at Bermuda, his native island, and commanded 2 regiment at Yorktown. After the war he became a 1egislator and a reviser and digester of the laws mater, and a state and federal judge. He was a poet Of no small ability, and his political satires, written under the name of Peter Pindar, were widely read. He edited an edition of Black stones commentaries. and wrote How Far the Common Law of England Is the Common Law of the United States, "A Dissertation on Slavery and a Proposal for its Gradual Abo1- ishment in Virginia and other works ! The ssAmerican Blackstone" died at Edgewood, Ya-s in 1928.
 Blackstone, born while George I was son the throne, died during the reign Of the third Georgak His Com nnentariess are interesting to the lay men, as well as to the student of law,
 
 severity of the law in the reigns of the first three Georges and that of the fifth monarch of that name. Black stone refers to 160 capital offenses, among them the following crimes which were held to merit the inhtc- ton of the death penalty: Counter feiting stamps used on hair powder and perfumes; telling a tree robbing a rabbit-warrens stealing from al dwelling to the amount of $10; steal ing from a shop goods worth more than $1.25; irlpersonattng a Green wich pensioner, and harboring an Of fender against the revenue law. St. a George Tucker lived in a, day when the United States and Canada. emu lated the ferocity of the mother coun-I try in. dealing with offenders against law. Tucker lived to see the initial ton of the movement by which the death punishment, in both England and America. has been reduced to it's present comparatively hlimane limits It was not until about half a cen tury ago, however. that England re duced the number to four capital mes-murder. treason. piracy with violence, and setting fire to dock yards or arsenals.