The Ghost of Nisi Prius. Evarts, will search the New York and Fed eral reports rather than those of the Con gressional Globe or the archives of the State Department." "You have said little about the judges of the period to which you have referred," I said to the ghost, interruptively. " For during your nisi prius and banco experience you must have acquired a stock of reminiscences about them." "Ah, they all knew me well," began the ghost with new chuckles. " I was as fully known to them, merely by my constant at tendance, as was Miss Flite to the judges who flourished in Jarndyce versus Jarndyce. When the New York judiciary became elec tive, conservative old lawyers cynically shook heads and said the Bench would now be deteriorated by the ballot-box. Such was not the proven result however. True, the Bench, for instance, lost appointed Judge William Kent, son of the commentator, and an inheritor of the latter's love of law and of his judicial temperament, without any of his father's severity of look or manners. Never was there a more courteous nisi prius judge, or of more equable temper, than Kent the younger. Metaphorically speaking, when he shed the ermine and regained the gown of the advocate, he, with renewed practice in his chambers, retained the love of the pro fession, and cheerfully set to work to anno tate new editions of the famous family commentaries, the copyrights whereof he had inherited. "Conventions and ballot-boxes soon pro vided a Bench of grand judges. And the new system of their alternating nisi prius and banco duties acted smoothly and profitably to themselves and the public. Judges who continuously sit at nisi prius, or in banco, are likely to construct grooves in their minds. I dare say Justice Gray, of the Washington Court, often pines for the pres ence of a jury as means of relaxation. The election of judges in New York, for instance, gave to lawyers and litigants John Duer, of
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colonial descent, of old-fashioned courtesy, and great research — as witness his treatise on Insurance; also Samuel Jones, retired chancellor, when chancery became euphe mistically abolished under the tame style Court of Equitable Jurisdiction, that jour neyed pari passu with conflicting common law and statutory procedures; also Harry Edwards, the elegant descendant of Connec ticut Jonathan, the divine. The ballot-box restored Vice-Chancellors McCoun and Rob ertson to the bench, and retained Thomas J. Oakley, who owned the face of a satyr but the heart of a St. John. Political bosses at that era felt the pulses and examined the tongues of the people in order to give them excellent judicial medicine. It was only after many succeeding years that another genera tion of bosses put imbibers of patent legal medicine on the New York Bench." Here the ghost changed chuckle for a groan, and resumed, " Now-a-days, political bosses who choose judges are apt to feel only their own pulses and put out their own tongues. Pre vious Judge Charles P. Daly was also then retained by election. Cynics in the profes sion menacingly said, ' This popular election of judges will lead them to time-serving and towards catering to popular applause.' I am proud to say," added the Ghost of Nisi Prius, rising to an oratorical attitude, " that down to the close of the Civil War, which had more or less demoralized trade, commerce, finance, and politics, New York City never knew one judge who could be suspected of demagogism or partiality; nor against whose integ rity there was a whisper. After that period you are old enough to form your own judgment as to the class of judges who fol lowed, and so can reminisce for yourself. Edwards Pierrepont, later minister to Eng land, at the early period as a judge of the Superior Court, together with Lewis B. Woodruff, later judge of the Court of Ap peals and Federal Circuit Judge, and Henry Hilton, in the Common Pleas, loom up in my experience as especial model judges. To
