of earrings, and signed: "Vale et ama, A. B." The handwriting was small, legible and precise, and did not at all suggest the unscrupulous and ambitious office-seeker and the bold adventurer and filibuster. These handwritings would greatly puzzle and confuse the English wizard in chirography of whom we lately discoursed. The Chairman wishes he still possessed those four autographs, that he might leave them to be sold eventually for the benefit of his family, for they would bring ten times what they brought him. Besides, he could comfort himself, in looking at them, by the reflection that the capacity of writing a good hand by no means ensures a good character!
An Unique Book. — Our old friend, Judge Bradwell, of the " Chicago Legal News, sends us a little book which shows among the ten thousand sheep-clad volumes by which the Chairman is sur rounded, like a violet among potatoes. " Short Stories by Myra Bradwell Helmer, age six years," is the title, and the author is the Judge's granddaugh ter, and the thirty-eight little pages are dedicated to him. It is adorned with beautiful portraits of the small author and her big grandpapa, who printed it, and takes " his pay in kisses." There are also fancy pictures of some of the characters of the stories. She is "to take one dollar of the money and give for the monument to Eugene Field. All the rest is for the orphans and sick babies. The book is twenty-five cents. I hope I will make lots of money for the orphans." So does the Chairman, bless her heart! Mr. Justice Brewer will please take notice. The con tents were " talked, and mama wrote it down for me just as I talked it." There is no doubt of that! What a legal ancestry this little tot has, to be sure! — grandfather, grandmother, father and mother — quite unique, we take it. May she live to write longer stories! Meanwhile the Chairman will pro ceed to read these aloud to his own grandchildren, and he himself finds them a great deal more entertain ing than Mrs. Ward's preachments or Marie Corelli's grumblings, and much more understandable than Browning or Meredith.
Austin Abbott. — The news of the death of this distinguished man, at the age of sixty-five, will be re ceived with great regret by the American Bar. He was one of the most erudite, but most modest of lawyers. His life was spent in teaching others. As a lecturer, as an editor, as an annotator, as the compiler of a great number of digests and works on practice, and as the author of many briefs on which loud and pushing lawyers have made great reputa tions in causes of importance, he has left a deep mark in our jurisprudence. He chose this walk as
more in consonance with his scholarly tastes and his lack of physical robustness, than the noise and strife and anxieties of courts. He took a deep interest in international law, and was an influential member of bar associations, both National and State. A man of general culture too, and of refined and courteous manners, he endeared himself to all his acquain tances. His erudition never degenerated into ped antry, he was never dry, and he had an, attractive and striking style. His capacity of discrimination was exquisite and unerring, and his clearness and conciseness were admirable. He came of a very dis tinguished family. His father was Jacob Abbott, author of many attractive books for children; a nephew of John S. C. Abbott, author of a " Life of Napoleon the First," very popular, and especially grateful to the nephew of his great uncle; a brother of the deceased Benjamin Vaughan, a well known and legal digester and compiler; and a brother of Rev. Dr. Lyman Abbott, editor of the " Independent." This is a remarkable family record. The Chair man's earliest reading was Jacob Abbott's " Rollo Books," and among his latest is Austin's " Univer sity Law Review," the very best periodical of its class. We wish our brother could have lived longer, but he lived an admirable and spotless life, and his works and his personal influence will long follow him.
Humor and Literature on the Bench.— The retirement of Judge Finch from the New York Court of Appeals, in January last, on arriving at the age of seventy years, was the occasion of a dinner given to him in the city of New York, and of remark there upon by Charles Dudley Warner, in "Harper's Magazine." Some discussion arose at the dinner as to whether humor and the literary faculty were not a hindrance rather than an aid to a judge. Having the example of their guest before their eyes, the diners concluded tha't they were not, and in this con clusion Mr. Warner, after a good deal of writing, vaguely concurs. Judge Finch was not a humorous judge in the sense that Chief Bleckley is, although he had a quiet, shrewd humor, but he was the best writer, especially in the statement of facts, that ever sat in that court, not excepting even Judge Porter, who was a fine rhetorician; and his literary gift has been equaled on the bench of this country in recent years only by the late Mr. Justice Bradley. Judge Finch has written some beautiful poems. Some of his college songs were sung at the dinner, and " The Blue and the Gray" and "Nathan Hale" are ex quisitely tender and pathetic, marked by the sweetest humanity and the loftiest patriotism. These things never hurt his judicial career a whit, for he demon strated that he had the strong intellectual grasp and
