Charles P. Daly. judges appeared to have their Bar favorites, and to show to these a partiality. Judge Daly at once began to change that regime. Newcomers were welcomed to trials and ar guments. They were treated with a defer ence equal to that shown to veterans. He also expedited business that had become more or less perfunctory. He hastened the course of witness examination, and severely applied rules about relevancy and cumula tion that had fallen into desuetude. His rulings began to indicate that epigrammatic condensation that always has been his forte. He endeavored to curb technicality, and to search for the spirit of the law, as well as to regard its letter. Sometimes veterans would endeavor to misquote to him. "The case is in such a volume, not the one you have inadvertently mentioned," he would interrupt with impressive courtesy, "and the headnote of the cited case does not seem to include the principle that you wish to apply." Or "The statute you refer to has been repealed or modified." Or " I think a distinction is to be drawn between the facts in that case and the one at bar." In short, veterans or jun iors alike found that the new judge was well equipped in treatises, reports and statutes. Judge Daly had already discounted in his own mind his own experience as to be com pared with that of practitioners who had been a score of years before the public. And he was gifted with excellent memory and a tendency to accuracy. More or less "roughing it " in youthful days had quick ened his powers of observation and compar ison. Little by little, therefore, Bar antagon ism faded; and before a year of service had elapsed his uniform serenity, courtesy, im partiality and dignity had compelled wit nesses, jurors and lawyers to remain his firm supporters. He became especially popular as a Chambers judge by reason of his early plodding over procedures; and his quick ness to perceive the flaws of a motion, or the incompleteness of an affidavit, or the weak link in a demurrer, or the tricks of
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applications for enhancing costs. His charges to juries bared delusive spots and clothed uncertainties, while disintegrating appeals ad hominem and putting contro verted points so aptly that jurors, when reaching their retiracy could fairly meet these categorically. He was a model lis tener while on the Bench, and often patient to an exhaustive degree while counsel prosed before him. Adverse critics of the new comer were compelled to admire his quali ties of will and intellect, his evidences of laborious study, his skill in logic, his selfcontrol, and his patient forbearance. Years passed on, and at the termination of each one, love and admiration for Judge Daly had intensified in court, business and social circles. So that it came to pass when his appointed term ended, and a change of State constitution had made his office elect ive, he was renominated by his party, and no opposition candidate expected to stand canvass against him except for the compli ment of a party nomination. With this new constitution soon came a change in, and a simplification of, procedures. Away had been swept, by codification, pages of nomen clature. By the board had gone pleas in abatement, pleas puis darcin of Norman origin, rejoinders, re- and surre-butters; leaving only from the ancient cargo of spe cial pleas that frequent life-raft of a harassed defendant, the demurrer. While many law yers, and not a few judges, inveighed against, or looked coldly and misunderstandingly upon the innovations, Judge Daly applied himself to the dissection and vivisection of the old and new procedures in contrast or comparison. It soon became professional property that Judge Daly was a proficient in the new procedures, and plaintiffs poured their plaints into his court, and lawyers manoeuvred to have their actions, if possible, come before him for hearings. How well he produced order out of the apparent chaos produced by the crash of the old system, and by the
