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A case brought by a revenue officer has helped to enliven the proceedings of a somewhat prosaic court of law in Amsterdam. Upon the cause list stood the petition of a tax-collector versus the Sultan of Turkey for non-payment of rent. The judge, as usual, ordered the usher to call both parties before the court. The usher, with his stately step, left the precincts of the court, and in his formal monotone called, " Herr N N and his Majesty the Sultan of Turkey, Abdul Hamid! " and then returned into court. The judge : "Are the parties to the suit present?" The usher : " No, your honor; only the plaintiff. His Majesty the Sultan does not appear." The judge considered that the dignity of the court must be upheld, and judgment was given accordingly. Mr. Button, the stenographic reporter for the Parnell Commission, gives his opinion of forensic orators as follows : — "The man who thinks clearly and who expresses himself in respectable English, is not difficult to re port. One of the most difficult of speakers to report is Sir Richard Webster He is utterly careless as to the manner in which his sentences are constructed, and he talks very rapidly Sir Richard is a trained athlete, and therefore a long-winded man; a sentence that would prostrUe any other orator is to him mere child's play. Now. so far as a newspaper is con cerned, the ipsissima verba of Sir Richard Webster's speeches do not matter much; his ideas can gener ally be put more neatly and effectively by the re porter himself. But the official shorthand-writer, be he Mr. Button or one of his three assistants, is bound to secure every word. He is forbidden either to touch up sentences or to improve a man's style. To the official shorthand-writer, therefore, Sir Richard Webster has proved one of the fastest, as well as one of the most difficult speakers heard at the Paraell Commission Court. Sir Henry James is as voluble a speaker as the Attorney-General, — he is possibly even more voluble, — but then his elocution is remarkably clear and distinct, and his style of English is at once clear and finished."
decent 2Deatfjjtf. Hon. Marcus Morton, ex-Chief-Justice of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, died at his resi dence in Andover, February 10. Marcus Morton
was born in Taunton in April, 1819, and he came of a notable family. His father, bearing the same name, was a justice of the Supreme Judicial Court from 1825 to 1840, in which year he was elected governor of the Commonwealth. The son at tended the common schools, a local academy, and Brown University, graduating from the latter in 1838. He studied law two years at Harvard and in the office of Sprague & Gray, Boston, and was admitted to the Suffolk Bar in 184 1, and immediately opened an office in Boston. He acquired an extensive practice, and continued to make his home in Boston until 1850, when he became a resident of Andover. He was a mem ber of the famous Constitutional Convention of 1853, being elected from Andover. In 1858 he was a member of the House of Representatives, and was chairman of the Committee on Elections. In April of the same year he was appointed a justice of the Superior Court of Suffolk County. Upon the abolition of the old court system and the establishment of the new, in 1859, he was appointed upon the Superior Bench of the State. For teif years he served faithfully and efficiently, and in April, 1869, he was appointed upon the bench of the Supreme Court, and was made Chief Justice in 1882. This position he filled with honor and distinction until last November, when ill health compelled him to retire from the bench.
Judge Benjamin R. Curtis died in Boston on January 25. He was born in June, 1855, and was the son of the late Judge Benjamin R. Curtis, a justice of the United States Supreme Court. He attended the Boston schools during his early youth, but at the age of eleven years was entered at St. Paul's School, Concord, N. H., the largest educational institution of its kind in America. Here he became fitted for matriculation at Har vard College, where he took the degree of bach elor of arts in the class of 1875, which includes many men who are prominent in the business and professional life of Boston. His bent was in the direction of literature. He read and he wrote. He was one of the most useful and valuable edit ors of the " Harvard Advocate," his contributions being among those of the most scholarly and interesting. He was at the Harvard Law School in 1876 and 1877, but did not graduate. In that year, 1879, ne became the principal collator of
