A number of these judges had been cir cuit judges of the old Supreme Court: Emott, Willard, Gridley, Parker, Edmonds, and Gray. Samuel Jones wrote opinions of wonderful learning in Corning v. McCullough, i N. Y. 47, on the statute of limitations in action against a stockholder; Ruckman v. Pitcher, 1 N. Y. 392, on wagers; Brewster v. Stryker, 2 N. Y. 19, on implied trusts. Daniel Cady was a man of proverbial sturdiness of character, whose name was a household word among the laity as well as among the lawyers. He not only had pro found legal learning and judicial calmness, but when he was at the bar he was a power ful advocate. It is related that so deep was he in the public confidence that he was more than once retained, after his judicial career was finished, merely to "look virtuous;" to say nothing and to do nothing but nod assent to all his associate might say, and wag a vigorous dissent from all the opposition might utter. The story is perhaps exagger ated, but its currency gives an impression of the man's reputation. See Judge Cady's opinion in Dry Dock Bank v. American, etc. Co., 3 N. Y. 344, on usurious loan under guise of a sale. Ira Harris was one of the most illustrious of our judges, a man of broad mind and great foresight, a legal reformer, and a re nowned teacher of law. In a sketch of the Albany Law School, in a former number of this periodical, may be found an estimate of his character and services, which it is not necessary to repeat. John W. Edmonds was a remarkably bril liant and learned man, once attorney-general and State senator, who conferred lasting benefit on his profession by various volumes of reports, and especially by his edition of the statutes of the State. He once went on a government mission to the Indians, and learned several Indian languages. He was State-Prison Inspector, and founded a soci ety for ameliorating the condition of crim inals, and was instrumental in mitigating corporeal punishment of convicts and insti
tuting rewards for their good behavior. He was especially learned in criminal law. He was one of the ablest of the old circuit judges. On the criminal trial of " Big Thunder," the anti-rent bogus Indian chief, he evinced his courage by committing Attorney -General John Van Buren and Ambrose S. Jordan for contempt in quarrelling in court, imprison ing one in the clerk's office and the other in the sheriff's office. In his latter years the judge was a firm believer in "spirits;" and although they flew all around him in his office and played pranks, they seemed not to dis turb his grasp of earthly affairs. Alonzo C. Paige was the well-known and admirable reporter of the ten volumes of Chancery reports which bear his name. John Willard was the author of elaborate and favorite treatises on Equity Jurisprudence and Real Property. Of the brilliant and useful career of Amasa J. Parker sufficient has been said in my sketch of the Albany Law School. He wrote a very interesting opinion in Snedeker v. Warring, 12 N. Y. 170, holding that a sun-dial and an out-door statue are fixtures. He died in May, 1890, in active practice, at the age of eighty-three. George Gould, son of the judge who founded the Litchfield, Conn., Law School, and wrote the learned work on Pleading, was the only "Know-nothing" judge of our State, and paradoxically he was the best-edu cated lawyer I ever knew, although he did lay down the untenable doctrine, in Alden v. N. Y. Central R. Co., 26 N. Y. 102, that a common carrier is an insurer of the road worthiness of its vehicles. He afterwards became so strenuous in enforcing the doc trine of " Look before you cross," as against persons suing on account of collisions at the crossings of railroads and highways, that the present Esek Cowen jocosely represented him as charging that " any person on the point of being killed is bound to stand still and look both ways at the same time; other wise the killing, although not praiseworthy, is damnum absque injuria" (The judge de
