Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 05.pdf/531

This page needs to be proofread.
492
The Green Bag.

results. In fine, he was a great gentleman as well as a great lawyer; and his associates in society as upon the bench equally loved and admired him. In Washington society he well preserved all those charming tradi tions which belong to the judicial times of Jay and Marshall, Woodbury and Curtis, McLean, Story, and Chase. Judge Blatchford was a man of fine phy sique and of well-balanced temperament; and he had known little of illness until his last days. He was finally overworked with all his husbandry of strength. But then, what conscientious and work-loving judge is not overworked? His death was physically peaceful and tranquil, and was mentally filled with contentment over the summons. New York mourned his loss from judicial and social life as it had previously mourned that of such of her former Federal judges as Betts, Nelson, Woodruff, Johnson, and Ward Hunt. The latter's death made way for Mr. Blatchford, who in turn has made way for the grandson of a great New Jersey jurist

whose learning lives supremely in the reports of that State. A judge enjoys better post humous fame than the practising lawyer. The latter may live in biography, but the former enjoys the immortality of the reports. Upon Friday, Oct. 10, 1893, a large repre sentation of the bar in attendance upon the Supreme Court in Washington met, dur ing a short recess of its judges, to consider memorial action respecting the death of Justice Blatchford. Ex-Senator Edmunds of Vermont in the chair gracefully and feelingly aunounced the object of the assemblage. Taking as texts some eulogistic resolutions prepared by a committee of which Julien T. Davies, a son of a late Chief-Justice of the New York Court of Appeals, was chairman, addresses were made by several lawyers. Among them was Joseph H. Choate of the New York Bar, who eloquently made pane gyric of the deceased jurist, and emphasized his mingled courtesy, urbanity, industry, and learning.