Legal Recollections. ances fast asleep, which often annoyed the lawyers addressing the Bench of which he was a member. Referring to this pecu liarity, one of his associates remarked : "Jones may appear to be asleep, but let any one state or quote bad law when he is somnolent, and, after nudging me, he awakes instantly." Mr. Clinton, in advising professional brethren to never abdicate any part of their office in the conduct of a case at the sug gestion of a client, by accepting the latter's views against their own professional judg ment, gives a remarkable instance of that folly from the celebrated divorce suit of Edwin Forrest, the tragedian, against his wife. She was the plaintiff, and so hard pushed was her counsel, Charles O'Conor, for evidence of her charge of infidelity, which had been made general, that he took the risk of calling the defendant to prove it. But the questions were ruled out on the ground of criminating privilege. There appeared only one bit of testimony touch ing infidelity, and that of mere implication, when Mr. O'Conor rested. John Van Buren, the tragedian's counsel, wished to move non-suit. The presiding judge long after wards admitted that if the motion had been made he must have granted it. Edwin Forrest, however, had counter-pleaded infi delity against his wife, and being exceed ingly bitter against her, desired the in crimination proceeded with, to her expo sure and annoyance, and Mr. Van Buren yielded his judgment to the strong protests of his client, but with the result not only of utter failure as to her alleged co-respond ents, but with that of bringing volunteer testimony to Mr. O'Conor from correspond ents outside the court room of Forrestian peccadilloes, in consequence of thirty-three days of publicity and popular gossip; which new evidence in the end convicted Forrest. The instance cited furnishes a valuable precedent to students and prac titioners.
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Mr. Clinton brings to the notice of this generation one of the most versatile and clever of forgotten New York lawyers, Horace F. Clark, a son-in-law of the elder Cornelius Vanderbilt, who, however, in his latter years confined his professional duties entirely to the railway enterprises of the Vanderbilt family, and to accepting a seat in Congress towards furthering certain ma rine schemes of his father-in-law. Clark is described as keen, aggressive, persistent, and charged even with an electric battery of caustic impudence. When only a young attorney he was pitted in a trial against an eminent lawyer, Hugh Maxwell, who was District Attorney, an eminent counselor, and father-in-law of the great Civil War general, Phil Kearney. Clark dogmatically dissented from a legal proposition advanced by Maxwell, who, pre suming upon his age, patronizingly addressed his antagonist with, " My young friend, I ought to know from my long experience at the bar. Why, I tried cases long before you were born." "That is so," returned Clark. " I have heard men tell about them : two before my birth and one since." An anecdote characteristic of Horace Greeley's caution is narrated. An editor, having had a bitter personal controversy with Colonel Watson Webb, another edi tor, was thought by a suitor to be an excel lent witness to prove the latter's character, which was in dispute. To the suitor's surprise Greeley returned this answer: "Webb has both good and bad qualities in such excess that I really cannot strike the balance which your question calls for." Mr. Clinton, in concluding his legal recollections, relates the unfortunate case of one of his clients, who was — upon cir cumstantial, dove-tailed with questionably expert medical testimony regarding poison — convicted and hanged, all the while pathetically protesting his innocence; and who afterwards, by the confession of a
