in the defence of Frank H. Walworth, tried for the murder of his father, Mansfield Tracy Walworth, the son of Chancellor Walworth. He was the leader for the plaintiff in the celebrated Marie-Garrison suit, — involving millions of dollars, — and argued the appeal on a demurrer, in which the plaintiffs' right to recover was determined (83 N. Y. 16), though the case was not concluded at the time of his death, when Mr. Conkling succeeded him as counsel. The last important criminal trial in which he was engaged was that of Jesse Billings, at Ballston Spa, charged with the murder of his wife. She was killed at about nine o'clock in the evening by some person who fired upon her from the outside, through the window of the room in which she was sitting. The evidence against Billings was circum stantial, but so strong that though the jury on the first trial — in which Mr. Beach did not take part — disagreed, a majority were for conviction. Mr. Beach was then seventy years of age, and had said he would never again take part in the trial of a criminal case. He felt the labors and anxieties of such trials too great and intense to be safely borne at his age. But Billings had been an acquaintance of his early days, and Mr. Beach could not resist the appeal to defend him. Indeed, it was one of his peculiarities that he could never resist an appeal for help, whether to his talents or his purse. Perhaps, too, the desire to appear once more in the old court-house where his early triumphs had been won, and among the friends of his youth, had something to do with persuading him to forego for that once his determina tion. The trial lasted two weeks. The evi dence was substantially the same as on the first trial. Mr. Beach summed up for the defendant. His foot was upon his native heath. The crowds who had flocked to hear him in his youth were there; their hair whitened, as his was, with the frosts of seventy winters. He held their rapt and delighted attention, as he had in days of yore. His client was triumphantly acquit
ted, though the greater part of the com munity then believed and still believe he was guilty. The cases I have enumerated were only those of a public character, which com manded such general attention that they rise at once to recollection. They consti tuted but a small part of the immense pro fessional labors of Mr. Beach between 1870 and 1884. He was constantly engaged as counsel in the trial of ordinary civil cases before juries, before judges sitting in equity, and before the appellate courts; and he had a large chamber practice. Though Mr. Beach will be remembered chiefly as a forensic orator, until he shares the speedy oblivion which is the common fate of great lawyers, this sketch would be incomplete without some mention of other qualities which made him a marked character and figure among his contemporaries. A more independent spirit never lived. His independence was almost an eccen tricity. He was undismayed by a hostile public opinion. The clamor of a denuncia tory press had no terrors for him. He was never known to truckle to the bench or to fawn upon the jury. He asked no favors, as such, from either. He demanded his rights and those of his clients, and was will ing to fight for them. In the days of ancient Rome he would have been a Coriolanus. He had an intense and manly scorn of petti fogging and sharp practice. No instance of either can be recalled against him. His generosity to his adversaries was proverbial. No one ever knew him to take a mean ad vantage even in the heat of battle. If he could not win by fair, open, manly, and hon orable methods, he preferred not to win at all. I once knew him to refuse to try a case before a certain judge, because the client had urged that he bring on the case before him, as the judge was his intimate personal friend. Unlike most lawyers of his time and school, he never " took down the young man on the other side." On the contrary, he was
