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THE GREEN BAG
the air. He was disgusted at the nomen clature adopted in the creation of some new districts in Lancaster County, and when one was called "Elizabeth," he declared he could never remember "townships named after women." His most fulsome biog rapher says he had no conception of beauty as expressed in painting, architecture, or sculpture, and he "was not a man of taste." He read history and the classics, not novels nor poetry. It will be remembered that on the memor able occasion which called forth Judge Black's superb eulogy on Gibson, at the May term of the Supreme Court, Harrisburg, May 9, 1853, the formal announcement of the ex-chief justice's death was made by Stevens; and those who read the proceedings as reported at the beginning of 6 Harris —and none can afford not to read them —• will not fail to be impressed with the stately severity of Mr. Stevens' literary style and his high appreciation of a great jurist; how ever much, as a politician, he may have ig nored the true principle of selecting the judiciary, as a lawyer he professed the loft iest ideals. Although Mr. Stevens had a great deal of kindness of heart and never seemed to be happier than when doing acts of charity to the deserving or extending relief to the un fortunate, or in ministering to the crippled and deformed, his tendency toward sarcasm and his disposition to say "smart things," often made him regardless of the feelings of those with whom he came into contact — especially if they were persons of power and influence. It is related that when Chief Justice Thompson once told him of the infi nite pains which he took in the preparation of his judicial opinions — often writing them over and over before he got them into a shape to satisfy himself — Mr. Stevens replied, "Yes, and then you don't get them in shape to satisfy the profession." Once in the Lancaster County Over and Terminer, when the court assigned a rather inferior member of the Bar to defend two
notorious negro murderers, Stevens re marked, "The court appointed H to defend them, so that there would be no doubt of their conviction." It is perhaps a trite — though very char acteristic — story that once when a lady admirer rather effusively addressed him as the "Apostle of Freedom" and begged a lock of his hair, he gallantly took off his wig and, laying it before her, invited her to "help herself." As to what were his professional stand ards, his ethical ideas, or religious beliefs, there is wide room for divergence of opin ion. He had no social aspirations nor ele vated domestic tastes. He viewed and even joined in football with the judicial office without concern; and it was a matter of no particular importance to him if every man in public life had his price — except himself. He attracted many law students, and when he was asked for terms, he replied. "Two hundred dollars. Some pay; some don't," — a custom at our local Bar which, by the way, is occasionally still honored in the ob servance. It is not at all certain that his influence on those closely associated with him was not more enduring for ill than for good. He was a student of the Scriptures, but rather for their historical and literary value than as a lamp to his pathway. As a lawyer, Judge Black once said of him to Mr. Justice Brown,' "When he died he was unequaled in this country as a lawyer. He said the smartest things ever said. But his mind, as far as his sense of his obliga tion to God was concerned, was a howling wilderness." Mr. Blaine, who had reversed Stevens' order of migration, and between whom and Stevens no love was lost — they were quite different types — sums up some of his char acteristics as a parliamentary figure which were inseparable from his quality as a law yer. He characterizes him as a natural leader, who assumed that place by common consent, "able, trained, and fearless," "un scrupulous in his political methods,"
