Stephen Payn Nash, LL.D. But Nash's own first case, argued before the New Court of Appeals, is reported in its first volume of decisions (1 N. Y. 144), Spear v. Wardwell, wherein he successfully met that noted old lawyer, Joseph S. Bosworth, who subsequently became preemi nent on the bench in New York City and as editor of Bosworth's " Superior Court Re ports." Mr. Nash's latest case, in the same Ap peals Court, was in the important case of Smiths. Parsons, 146 N. Y. 116. Among those 145 volumes- of Appeals reports, scarcely one can be found not containing a reference to the appearance of Mr. Nash, year by year, in the court. One of the most notable of his arguments can be found in Dupuy v. Wurtz, 53 N. Y. 556, where his opponent was that great international jurist, Frederick R. Coudert. The case included the interesting controversy whether a will made in France, by a woman, should be construed by the French law as to person alty, or by that of New York, where was her domicile; and the case includes much valuable learning on the question of domicile. Another cause celcbre of Mr. Nash's was Fowler v. N.Y. Gold Exchange, which arose out of the financial crisis known to State Street and Wall Street circles as Black Friday. In that case, Mr. Nash ad versely met the adroit and able Francis F. Marbury, who contended that when Nash's clients sought payment of a gold loan they could only recover the naked amount, and not the market premium in fluctuations on payment day. Perhaps the best gauge of Mr. Nash's legal calibre will be afforded by a perusal of a case in 129 United States Supreme Court reports from page 397 to 463 in which his marvelous brief, in a controversy between the Liverpool & Great Western Co. vs. the Phoenix Insurance Company, was printed in full because of the many references made to it in the decision. It is notable that in many of the decisions
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given in the Nash cases, the opinions, when favorable to his contention, freely embody his points, and sometimes complimentarily his own verbiage. This was always choice, in pure Saxon, and of charming lucidity of style. He seldom strayed in the region of the speech, colloquially (and too often flip pantly), termed oratory; but he was ever persuasive, and he builded up from propo sition and illustration an edifice of rhetoric like as a builder constructs with conservative and accurate use of line and plummet. Mr. Nash was both a builder in law, from foun dation and cornerstones of principles of juris prudence, and with use of bevelled cases (so to speak), that fitted his logical construction. He was both an arguer from the principles of jurisprudence and a veritable case lawyer; but never a case lawyer who could simply make citations without explanations and fit ting adaptation, as many lawyers crudely do. The only very popularly notable cause eclcbre that he ever tried at nisi prius was in a libel suit brought in New York City a decade or so ago by an Episcopal mission ary clergyman named Hinman against mis sionary Bishop Hare. The latter having reason to find fault with and discipline the former wrote an article pungently criticis ing him. He was represented at the trial by James M. Smith (who recently died, during the same week in which Mr. Nash, his adversary in the suit also deceased). Mr. Smith's abilities as a lawyer wore sketched in an article touching him, in the number of the Green Bag for January, 1897, entitled, " A Quartette of Legal Nestors," and he was an important foeman. He was ac customed to the " rough and tumble " of jury nisi prius, and Nash was not. Smith entered into the angry feelings of his client and tried his side with unwonted asperity. The contest was a new experience to Nash, and bar spectators of it looked on with in terest to see the effect of Smith's tactics on Nash. But he was never stung into untoward
