The Ghost of Nisi Prius.
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THE GHOST OF NISI PRIUS. II By A. Oakey Hall. AT my second meeting with the Ghost of Nisi Prius I began to chide him for breaking his engagement to meet me with more reminiscences on the day following our first interview, when he interrupted with an apologetic wave of his hand, and pre serving the spirituelle, melodious voice of our first interview, said, " Although I term my self the Ghost of Nisi Prius, I have learned to prize arguments in banco, at which there is no glamour of a jury. Before the twelve comes the ' keen encounter of wits ' whereof Shakespeare makes Gloster speak to Lady Anne; but before judges in banco comes in play, comparatively, Shakespeare's succeeding line, ' and fall somewhat into a slower method.' I had in my lifetime at tended in New York several arguments before a bench, notably one in which Daniel Webster appeared, during the for ties. It was in the famous India-rubber patent controversy between Charles Good year and Horace H. Day. No nisi prius hearing was ever so piquantly interesting as that argument. And it was notable as oc casioning the substantial debut of Clarence A. Seward at the city bar. My absence on the day we agreed to meet was more or less connected with that then very young man. I was absent because I flitted to Washington in order to hear the second argument on the income tax cases, wherein Seward, alas, no longer youthful save in heart and strength, pulled laboring oar for the pri vate litigants." My ghost, spiritually like, was beginning to ramble, for as ghosts deal not with time or space, they are — and especially accord ing to Swedenborg — apt to disregard se quences. So I said, " Let the income tax visit
wait a bit, and return to Webster and the India-rubber case." Not at all disconcerted by my episod ical intervention, the ghost gave a chuckle and said, " Ha, ha, it was a rare occasion : George Sullivan — the founder of the great law firm, variously known in epochs, as Sullivan & Bowdoin — Sullivan, Barlow & Bowdoin — Bowdoin, Larocque & Barlow — and lastly, Shipman & Larocque — was se nior counsel against Webster. The latter oratorical as well as logical, and Sulli van logical without a taint of oratory. And I use the word taint advisedly, for I believe oratory per se is wasted in banco. "Have you ever seen a bulldog get a grey hound by the ear? " asked my ghost with another chuckle. "How beautiful the hound, and how graceful are his efforts to get away from the tenacious bulldog who surlily holds on. His best point in the con troversy is his teeth, and his second point the tenacity with which that point is held upon. Match the arguing logical lawyer having principle and precedent for his teeth with the graces of an opposing orator, and you have the contest of legal bulldog with legal greyhound. Sullivan was to my mind the bulldog, and Webster the greyhound. And I fancy Judge Samuel Nelson then, as he heard their contention, may have thought of the simile. A bystander asked young Seward how long Goodyear versus Day was likely to last. I remember that it was then years old, and had been heard in various forms in Boston as well as in New York. Seward is Tlow, as president of the Union Club, known to be as witty and poetic as he is learned and logical, and he took pen cil and paper and thus wrote impromptu : —
