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The Court of Appeals of Maryland. Although the Court of Appeals was duly organized on the 22d of December, 1778, with a full bench of judges, the Maryland reports do not show any cases of record until the May term of 1782. During those eventful years, the people of Maryland were fighting the battle's of freedom. The Mary land men were winning glory on the fields of Cowpens, Guildford Court House, Hobkirk's Hill, Eutaw,

and, at the finale of the glorious struggle, Yorktown. While the men were fighting bravely, the women of Maryland were making clothes for their gallant fathers, brothers, husbands, sons, and neither men nor women had time, inclination, or money for the expensive luxury of litigation. When the Maryland Court of Appeals was established, Luther Martin was the At torney General of Maryland. A sketch of this celebrated law yer was published in JEREMIAH the Green Bag, April, 189 1. His brilliant genius and extraordinary legal learn ing were frequently displayed in the Court of Appeals. He was not only the head of that Bar, but was the recognized head of the American Bar, at a time when there were legal " giants in the land." For more than a century, the Bar of the Court of Appeals has been distinguished by an unrivalled galaxy of legal stars. It is necessary to mention only such names as Daniel Dulany, Charles Carroll, Benjamin Tasker, Luther Martin, William Pinkncy, Samuel Chase, John Beale Bordley, Reverdy Johnson,

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William Winder, Robert Goodloe Harper, William Wirt, John Nelson, Francis Scott Key, John V. L. McMahon, William Schley, S. Teackle Wallis, etc. Annapolis was a polished capital, and famous for its charm ing society, while Baltimore was as yet a mere village. This brilliant and cultured society was composed chiefly of lawyers and their families. The members of the Maryland Bar in those early days were men of pleasure as well as men learned in the law. They fought, drank, gam bled, patronized the theatre, the cock-pit and the race-course. One of the most famous of the early Maryland lawyers was Daniel Dulany, the younger, of whom the accomplished William Pinkncy, who saw him only in his declining years, said : " Even among such men as Pitt, Fox, Sheridan, he did not find his superior." Another of those T. CHASE. eminent lawyers was Samuel Chase, one of Maryland's signers of the Declaration of In dependence, afterwards one of the associate justices of the Supreme Court of the United States. Other distinguished Maryland law yers of this early period have been men tioned in " The Golden Days of the Mary land Bar," an article which was published in the Green Bag in July, 1891. Those famous old lawyers threw so brilliant a lustre over the Bar of Maryland that its reflected glory is still visible even towards the sunset of the century in which they flourished.