torney instantly addressed himself to dili gent preparation well into the midnight; and on the next morning arose refreshed by honest sleep to the task. The Belden engagement elsewhere, however, lapsed, and the old lawyer, returning to the court, took a seat among the spectators in the rear and quietly watched the progress of his understudy and substitute. The result proved so satisfactory that immediately the elder offered the junior a partnership. While a prosecutor, McKinley was the true judge advocate, never changing his official title into the private one of persecu tor — that so often appertains by tempta tions to triumphs to the young prosecutor of the People's pleas — and properly tem pering the justice of the case with mercy. For the foregoing* Belden anecdote I am indebted to the manuscript notes of Wm. R. Day, senior member of the great law firm in Canton of Day, Lynch & Day, who has pre pared for publication a charming sketch of his legal and political neighbor. Also for the following incident. Young McKinley was defending a medical client sued for alleged malpractice in setting a broken leg. It was suspected, without means of proof being provided, that the claim was what in the legal slang of corpor ation damage suits is called " a fake snap." The plaintiff's counsel had ocularly exposed the mis or mal-practiced leg to the jury and oracularly showed the nodes which were the alleged palpable evidences of the want of medical skill, when McKinley— who has been many times remarked for skillful use of the rednctio ad absurdum, exclaimed as the plaintiff was restoring the clothing of the limb, " Now let us see your other leg." Which, after very excusable objections as to policy from his attorney, was exhibited. The new exhibit — which proved to have been duly marked with india ink — showed the same nodes that were upon the other leg; and proved that, as McKinley wittily remarked, it was Dame Nature and not the Sir John
or surgeon — for McKinley does not dis dain a pun — who had been guilty of mal practice. The case came under what jurists term fraud, patent as well as latent, and McKinley won, to the applause of a crowded court-room. It was early remarked of McKinley the lawyer that he never took things for granted, and always thoroughly prepared his evidence, logically marshaled his facts as well as the points of an argu ment in banco, and usually led to a climax. He never slurred " an easy case," but gave to it the same attention that belonged to difficult or desperate contentions. He early excelled in oratory, and this excellence it was that attracted to him the attention of political leaders. His seven terms in Congress beginning with the administration of President Hayes in 1876 and lasting over a dozen years, together with his election as Governor of Ohio, have become matters of history easily to be conned elsewhere. While in the National legislature his legal attainments came into serviceable play as a member of the Committees on the Revision of Laws of Judiciary. While Governor he was more addicted to being his own legal adviser than to depending upon his Attor ney-General for counsel; and doubtless the latter never thought of applying to his gubernatorial superior the stale saying touching client and fool. "Confound the President," once said At torney-General Bates, according to Wash ington gossip in Civil War time, " Lincoln is so excellent a lawyer under the maxim eadem ratio ibidem lex, that he is apt to advise himself off-hand in matters that appertain to the Department of Justice, and does not call for my official opinion." Which is a parallel case with that of Governor McKinley and the Ohio Attorney-General. While lawyer McKinley was in Congress, its now venerable librarian' often found him in the section of the Congressional Library devoted to jurisprudence, consulting author
