Some Kentucky Lawyers of the Past and Present. Gibson, has all the characteristics of an able advocate. James Speed was a leading lawyer of dis tinguished ability. He was attorney gen eral in President Lincoln's Cabinet. About a year before his death, when he was seventy-four, he made an argument which lasted four hours, in the Shirley will case, said to have been one of the best ef forts of his life. Addison M. Gazlay won high rank as a commercial lawyer. His contemporaries said, " When Gazlay finished with a subject there was nothing left to be said." His lineage goes back to the eleventh century, to Al Ghazzali, called "g'01"/ of the law." John Mason Brown was a distinguished lawyer. In 1873 he became the partner of William F. Barret, a fine lawyer and a polished gentleman. One of Colonel Brown's first Louis ville cases was the JAMES Newcomb case. His handling of it is said to have been so able as to win the ad miration of the bar throughout the State. He was, as every lawyer should be, ac customed to seek exact truth. An in stance of this is related by Colonel Durrett : "He was testing the probability of Europeans having visited America and formed settle ments before the discovery of Columbus. He had found in Paraud's French translation of Filson's Kentucky a number of extracts from Greek and Latin authors, showing that Eu ropeans had been in America long before the Christian era. Not satisfied, he searched
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Diodortis, Plato, Pausanias, Elien and Plu tarch, in the original." To use the simile of the great Irish author, when speaking of a famous American, " like the chef-d'œuvre of the Grecian artist, he exhibited in one glow of associated beauty, the pride of every model and the perfection of every master." Colonel Brown's son and namesake is a bright young member of the Louisville bar and assistant city attorney. Judge George B. Eastin possessed a rarely beautiful char acter, from the exceptionally well balanced proportions of its many fine qualities. He was a judge of the court of appeals and president of the Confed erate Veteran Associ ation of Louisville. Since his death it has been named in his honor. Bennett H. Young has been prominent for years in Louis ville. He is the youngest man ever elected an honorary SPEED. member of the Louis ville Board of Trade. Judge Alfred T. Pone was judge of the law and equity court and the youngest chancellor who ever sat upon the bench in Kentucky. He was a man of noble charac ter. One of the legal giants of Louisville is Andrew Barnett. His partners are his son and Shackleford Miller, who is a fine lawyer. Aaron Kohn is the finest criminal lawyer in Louisville. In the case of Kaelin, charged with wife-murder, he saved his client's life by establishing the principle that " the failure to
