2bO
The Grecti Bag.
The long-established rules of practice had to yield to the new and almost untried code or statutory form of pleading, in all of which Senator Hanna, as a member of the Judiciary Committee, took an active part. In 1856 he was elected by the voters of the district Cir cuit Judge, which he afterwards resigned to accept a seat on the Supreme bench of the State, appointed by the Governor. He was then elected by the votes of the State to succeed himself; and at the expira tion of his term of office he retired, having held the office by appointment and election for the term of eight years. The decisions of that high court attest its character for industry in legal research, and wisdom in decision of new and intricate ques tions of law. Judge Hanna and his associ ates of that court are dead, but they have left surviving them a monument more en during than marble or brass. These may perish, as others have; but their judicial opinions will stand, with the language in which they are written, forever. In quitting office, Judge Hanna retired to his farm in Sullivan County. He was again elected to the State Senate; and resigned from that body with his Democratic associ ates to defeat the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Disgusted with the order of public affairs, he retired from public to private life, giving attention to his large farm in Sullivan County, Ind., and the practice of the law in the sur rounding courts, until his death. In the fall of 1871 Judge Hanna was stricken down with paralysis, and died the following Janu ary, 1872. As a neighbor, none could excel him; his house, like a hotel, was open to all who saw proper to partake of his hospitality. Kind, liberal, and charitable, devoted in his attach ments, he never deserted a friend. As a lawyer, he was accurate and discriminating in his arrangement and classification of facts, and seldom erred in his application of the law. He was an able lawyer and an upright judge His early death created a profound sorrow.
James L. Worden. Massachusetts furnished another judge in the person of James Lorenzo Worden for the Supreme Court of Indiana. He was born at Sandisfield in that State, May 10, 1819. When only eight years of age, his father died, and a year or so thereafter his mother moved to Ohio. He received only a com mon-school education; and was admitted to the bar at Lancaster, Ohio, in 1841. In 1844 he moved to Whitley County, Ind., and shortly afterward to Noble County of the same State. He was a Democrat, and in 1856 Governor Wright appointed him to a vacancy on the Circuit Court of the tenth circuit. In 1857 he was an unsuccessful candidate for Congress; and on the 16th of January, 1858, Governor Willard appointed him to the vacancy occasioned by the res ignation of Judge Stuart. Thus reached the Supreme Court bench one of the ablest men who ever sat upon it. With one inter mission of six years, from 1865 to 1871, he continued on the bench until Dec. 1, 1882. During the six years he was off the bench he was elected Mayor of Fort Wayne, where he had lived many years. In 1876 the indis creet announcement of the decision in State v. Swift, made during the political campaign of that year, was a source of great annoy ance to him. It became a byword of the campaign, and for months he was pursued by anonymous letters taunting him with the expressions he then used. Judge Worden was a man of few words. His opinions are seldom long, and often short but terse. Of him it has been said by some of his brother judges that the State could well afford to pay him his salary although he did nothing but meet with the court in consultation. Per haps his best opinions were given in cases of wills and in their construction. But in crimi nal cases his mind was too technical; and more than one criminal has cheated the punishment he justly merited because of Worden's technical opinions. In 1882 he declined a renomination, and resigned one
