Charles P. Daly. four and five thousand opinions were, during his long career, written and filed by Judge Daly, who, by the by, should be most properly denominated Chief Jus tice, because that rank in his court he sustained during the greatest portion of his services, as is attested by the now elaborately gold-mounted gavel which he used during his service as Chief, and which was presented to him as a souvenir by Bar subscription on his retirement. That event was a conspicuous one in the history of the metropolis of his nativity and honors. It occurred on the New Year's eve of 1885, and for its announced celebra tion probably every member of the Bar then in the city assembled to bid Chief Justice Daly a personal farewell. Ex-President Chester A. Arthur was in the chair. His first case, as a young lawyer, had been pleaded before Judge Daly. David Dud ley Field, as the Nestor of the occasion, made the opening speech. It was inexpres sibly tender and eloquent. He was followed by William Allen Butler, who is regarded by his fellows of the Bar Association as, in his dual capacity of lawyer and poet, the mod ern Sir William Jones. Many other lawyers and judges echoed the justly eulogistic resolutions and speeches. The now Ex-Chief Justice, instinctively quivering through emotion his characteristic shaggy eyebrows, and with his voice mel lowed to an unaffected tremolo, responded amid a silence that proved to be more elo quent than the most spontaneous applause could have been. In the course of his sin gularly appropriate response, he said : — "Erasmus has prefigured the general sit uation of a judge in the exclamation of, ' Unhappy is the man who sees both sides,' to which may be added, and still more un happy is he who hopes to satisfy both sides. I early recognized this truth, and when I had applied all my powers to the examina tion of a case and had decided it, I never thought of it afterwards; and as a judge's
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duties lie chiefly in the settlement of legal controversies, in which one party is gratified and the other disappointed, it is very satis factory for me to feel that, as far as I know, the discharge of this duty over so many years has left behind it no unpleasant recol lections." He also felicitously thus summed up the relations of a judge, which none now on the Bench anywhere can fail on reading it to rec ognize the truth of expressions as applied to his own career: — "I feel this honor from the Bar the more because judges, in the discharge of their du ties, cannot always be as affable or as cour teous as they would be under other circum stances. Having generally to give the clos est attention to the matter before them — to concentrate all their faculties for the imme diate decision of questions that may be new, intricate or difficult — the earnest discharge of such duties frequently brings about a highly nervous condition, that shows itself in 'a brusqueness of manner and curtness of speech that sometimes gives offense when none was intended, and as I have, with my judicial brethren, shared in this infirmity, I feel, as I have said, more sen sibly the courtesy always shown me by the Bar." Upon the same New Year's eve a banquet tendered to the Ex-Chief Justice by all the judges of the courts was held at Delmonico's, whereat all formalities were dis pensed with, such as toasts and speeches; while each guest silently drank Lady Macbeth's sentiment, " general joy to the whole table." Concurrent with his judicial career came with Judge Daly the life of a man of society; of an orator on many public occasions; of the President of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick; and of an adviser to many public men and statesmen. And indeed it was not only on the Bench that Judge Daly used his legal knowledge in the service of the public. When the War of the Rebellion
