Kellar, 94 Mo. 581; State v. Meyers, 99 Mo. 107. Judge Sherwood's style is rhetorical, of tentimes in a marked degree. He has been unsparing in his denunciation of frauds, and strenuous in his demands for a rigid adherence to the strict letter of the Consti tution. In a number of notable instances he has led a dissent so ably and so forcibly that the next hearing resulted in an adop tion of his views. (See Polston v. See, 54 Mo. 291; overruled, Edwards v. Knapp, 97 Mo. 432; Hargadine v. Van Horn, 72 Mo. 370, and Burnett v. McCluey, 78 Mo. 676; overruled, Burnett v. McCluey, 92 Mo. 230; Kanaga v. St. Louis, etc., R. R., 76 Mo. 207; overruled, Mueller v. Kaessmann, 84 Mo. 318; State v. Hickman, 75 Mo. 416, and State v. Jennings, 81 Mo. 185; overruled, State v. Berkley, 93 Mo. 41; Wernse v. McPike, 76 Mo. 249; overruled, Wernse v. McPike, 100 Mo. 476; Priest v. Way, 87 Mo. 16; overruled, Bogie v. Nolan, 96 Mo. 85.) Whether the practice of elaborate dissent ing opinions is a beneficial one or not, there can be no doubt that Judge Sherwood's in dulgence of it has not been wholly barren of fruit. It is in the domain of equity ju risprudence that Judge Sherwood is pre-emi nently great, for he is doubtless a thorough master of every aspect of its rules and doc trines. That he should have escaped criti cism because of some of his utterances, would be strange in this age, when anything outside the time-honored and well-trodden paths of judicial expressions at once attracts the atten tion of the profession. Nor is this the time or place to discuss the merits of the criti cisms made. This much can always be justly claimed for this jurist, — that he is in flexibly honest in his views, brave in express ing them, and has never faltered in their defence; and, above all, that if he has erred at all, it has been in form and not in sub stance, and on the side of a high standard of personal and official honesty, and in the di rection of construing constitutional guaran ties for the largest protection of private rights
and individual liberty. A selection, at ran dom, of some of his best known sentences can be profitably grouped in these columns, — "It is, indeed, a very sad commentary on human nature, that accusations like the pres ent are ever founded in fact; and it is an equally melancholy reflection that but too frequently charges of this sort result alone from the promptings of a mendacious and malevolent spirit, fortuitously furnished with some slight circumstance sufficing to give verisimilitude to some artfully woven and damning story. The judicial annals abound with instances where the sheerest fabrica tions respecting the offence here charged have been made to assume and wear the hue and complexion of absolute verity." (State v. Jaeger, 66 Mo. 173, 175, 176.) "When we reflect on the foregoing diverse statements, and numerous others of like kid ney scattered through this record, these questions come unbidden before us : Need honesty shelter itself behind prevarication? Must good faith summon to its aid the mot ley troop of falsehood? " (Cass County v. Green, 66 Mo. 498, 511.) "Fraud is rarely susceptible of positive proof, for the obvious reason that it does not cry aloud in the streets, nor proclaim its iniquitous purposes from the housetops. Its vcrmiculatioiis are chiefly traceable by ' cov ered tracks and studious concealments.'" (Massey v. Young, 73 Mo. 260, 273.) "I concur in overruling the motion for re hearing on these grounds : ... (3) A great clamor has been made about the opinion, and I am in favor of denying the motion on that distinct ground, regardless of all other considerations. The days of any court ought to be numbered, whenever it yields by the tithe of a single hair to any other considera tions except those arising upon the record." (Long v. Long, 79 Mo. 644, 660.) "With all deference to my associates, I can only say that such a conviction (as sup posed for the sake of argument), though secundum legem, as goes Hickman's case, is worthy alone of ' twelve butchers for a jury
