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The Green Bag

into free States, were received, clothed, fed, judicial action upon his own Greenback legaland forwarded to Canada by benevolent tender act, the offspring of his secretary Abolitionists residing along the country of the treasuryship. stretching from the region where Thaddeus When codification became the fashion of Stevens lived to that where Gerrit Smith the New York Legislature, Mr. Noyes was had his estate, near to the Canada line. selected as a commissioner, in company with The father of Mr. Noyes was one of these David Dudley Field and Alexander W. Brad philanthropists; and long before the sensa ford, to codify all the statutes relating to the tional advent of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," common and commercial law, and that affect young Noyes had heard from the lips of fugi ing real estate and wills. Their report ex tive slaves stories of misery equally harrow ists in the archives of the Legislature, which ing with those in Mrs. Stowe's novel. These body laid it upon the table. Now that the excited his sympathy, and undoubtedly indefatigable codifier, Mr. Field, has died, tinctured his after political leanings. such a code will not probably ever be en In 1857 he received the nomination of acted in New York State, the large majority his party for Attorney-General of the State of jurists therein opposing the attempt as cal of New York, and although running some culated to mar the elasticity of old systems; thousand votes beyond the rest of his ticket, but the notes in the report as prepared by he was unsuccessful. In the year following, Mr. Noyes remain as testimony to his learn when Judge Harris was elected United States ing, and to his now traditional assiduity. senator, defeating Messrs. Evarts and Greeley Like nearly every very active lawyer, Mr. in the caucus, Mr. Noyes had been ap Noyes was eminently sociable in his nature. proached by party leaders who expressed At his own dinner-table, as host to many themselves willing to name him as candidate distinguished guests from time to time, he upon his paying a certain sum by way of could alternately be the piquant leader of party assessment. His family well remem conversation or the tactful listener. At the ber the indignation that followed the proffer. salons presided over by his companionable Mr. Noyes, however, was, on the election of and cultured wife, he was particularly bril Mr. Lincoln and the dawn of secession, op liant, and he came eminently under the posed to war, and accepted the post of celebrated description, by Dr. Sam Johnson, delegate to the Peace Congress. Referring of the "clubbable man." No member of to that body afterwards, while the war pro either the earlier Century, or later Union gressed, — and he died before the Appom- League Club, each of which he assisted in atox event, — he likened that Congress to founding, was more welcome to his fellows the efforts of Madame Partington's broom than Mr. Noyes, and he could " talk shop" when breasting the Atlantic. He had been an without boring his customers of the club orator at the New York indignation meeting circles. None who were guests at his last consequent upon the assault against Senator social function, when, three days before his Sumner, which led to an intimacy between demise, he presided as newly-elected presi them; and the family prize a letter from dent at the annual Forefathers' dinner of the the great Charles of the Bay State, request New England Society, — from which re ing permission to use the name of Mr. turning he contracted the disorder that, con Noyes as a candidate for the vacant chief- nected with recent over-zealous professional justiceship after the death of Mr. Taney. labor, worked his death, — have ever forgot But Mr. Noyes had already become an ad ten his genial sociability, his eloquent wel vocate for Mr. Chase, who so nobly vindi come of guests, and tactful direction of the cated his own selection by his independent banquet on that evening.