joy of laymen at finding them to have shat tered the old King's Bench iniquitous maxim, ' the greater the truth the greater the li bel,' which, however, afterwards became substantially qualified into, only when the truth is unnecessarily uttered and damage has resulted. About the same time there was another great libel case brought by no less a person than DeWitt Clinton against another Crosswell editor, who owned a news paper in Schoharie County, adjoining Al bany. I recall that Richard Riker, a famous jurist, of his day, had made a motion to re move the action from New York, where Clinton was popular, to the county where the paper was published." At this juncture I listened attentively to the ghost, for at this time of ghostly inter view, was being mooted in an adjacent court the jurisdictional question whether Charles A. Dana, the Nestor of the New York press, should be extradited to Washington to an swer for a libel disseminated there against one of its citizens, although the libel was printed and published in New York City. The ghost continued: "Justice James Kent heard the motion and denied it, saying in comment 1 : ' It is more important for an individual to protect his character against libels disseminated in the place of his resi dence than in a remote place where he might not be known.' "Meanwhile another generation of great lawyers, the second for New York City, was coming to the fore of the bar," continued the ghost; " such as William P. Van Ness, Elisha Williams, Peter B. Munro, William Slosson — his fame to be continued by two sons, — James Tallmadge, Philo Ruggles the "Coleman and Caine's reports, 398. Ed.
first, Robert S. Sedgwick, Elijah Paine, John Anthon the elder, Reuben H.Walworth (after wards chancellor), Samuel A. Eoot, Samuel A. Talcott, and Thomas J. Oakley (the facile priuceps). Elisha Williams might be called the nisi prius Henry Erskine of that grand group who, during the administration of Madison and Monroe, dominated New York litigation, Kent illustrating the bench, while Walworth, Foot and Anthon divided honors as the most deeply read in legal science. Anthon was more of a banco lawyer, yet his volume on nisi prius deservedly retains to this day a place in legal libraries. Elisha Williams was regarded as the shrewdest of his legal generation in what I may call stage management of his cases. He was an adroit inductive cross-examiner, and he well knew when to stop, after punctuating some one strong point for a client. "How many nisi prius cases," said the ghost again digressively, " I have in my time observed lost through over cross-ex amination. How many even shrewd lawyers I have noticed, some from desire of display and others through ' invoking keen encounter of wits,' draw answers by cross-examination that had better for their side been left alone. How often, too, I have seen a not very well read advocate get, by means of tact, an advantage over the lawyer of great learning and deep thought who was tactless. How often, too, I have encountered lawyers who, although the judge was manifestly favoring them, insisted upon continuing argument, and not knowing when to stop. Also lawyers who hammered at comparatively immaterial points instead of restingcontented with clinch ing the one controlling point."
