of Church's patience would have endured his generally exhibiting learning and research, assumption of this function; and it is said of which Adams v. Perry, 43 N. Y. 487, that they " had it hot and heavy " in private on perpetuities; Kinne v. Ford, 43 N. Y. 587, on sale and delivery of gold coin; on the subject. I have seen the Chief visi Madison Ave. Baptist Church v. Baptist bly amused, sometimes annoyed. I used to Church, etc., 46 N. Y. 131, on sale of lands wish I could be Chief for just one day, in of religious societies
- White v. Howard, 46
order to " sit down " on Grover in public for N. Y. 144, on charitable devises by will made this boorishness. He would say to counsel, in another State
and Clinton v. Myers, "There ain't anything in that point; you 'd 46 N. Y. 511, on right to maintain a dam better skip to the third; " " The Court don't as against an intervening owner, are good want to hear you any more on this point;" examples. "You have cited forty cases to this point; the Court can't look at them all; you 'd Rufus Wheeler Peckham. better point out, say, half-a-dozen that you Judge Peckham was born in 1809, and was set the most store by; " etc. He would sit up all night and read the record, come into educated at Union College He studied law court next morning knowing more about it with Greene C. Bronson and Samuel Beards than the counsel, and prod him with perti ley, and then formed a life-long friendship nent and embarrassing inquiries and sugges with the latter. On admission he came to tions. The worst of it was that he was Albany to practise, and held his own against usually right; but then he was out of his such brilliant advocates as Samuel Stevens, place, and I doubt that anything was gained Marcus T. Reynolds, and Henry G. Whcaton. for justice by this conduct. Once an emi At the age of twenty-nine he was appointed by nent counsellor said, in the argument of a Governor Marcy district attorney of Albany case in this court, in reference to a sup County. He was defeated in 1845 in the plementary point in manuscript, " All I Legislature for the office of Attorney-General need say about this is to observe, in the by John Van Buren by one vote. In 1852 language which his Honor Judge Grover he was elected to Congress as a Democrat, so frequently employs, ' I don't think there 's and served one term. He denounced the anything in that point.' " This did not seem Nebraska bill, and foretold with astonishing to amuse Grover, but the rest had evident precision the effects which that measure pro difficulty to keep their faces straight. But duced. Subsequently he was associated in the court beat the counsel on that very business with the eloquent Lyman Tremain. point. And yet in spite of all his faults of In 1857 he was defeated for the office of jus manner, the bar, including even those who tice of the Supreme Court; but in 1859 he suffered from his thrusts, had a sincere re was elected over Ira Harris, and at the end spect for this eccentric character, because of eight years re-nominated and re-elected they knew him to be honest, independent, without opposition. In 1870 he became a learned, and clear-sighted. judge of the new Court of Appeals, and served More good stories and sayings are told of until 1873, when being broken in health he Grover than of any other judge within my sailed for Europe with his wife on the steamer recollection. I have no room for the stories, Ville du Havre, and they both perished in the and one of the sayings will suffice : " When wreck of that vessel. a lawyer is beaten, he has two remedies : one Peckham was not a learned lawyer nor a is to appeal; the other is to go down to the patient student, bur he was well grounded tavern and swear at the court." and had a tenacious memory, a clear com He wrote many opinions, seldom long, al prehension, a keen sense of right, independ ways unembellished but forcible in style, and ence, courage, and honesty. He had however
