By Irving Browne.
CURRENT TOPICS. Oakey Hall. — In the death of Oakey Hall one of the most brilliant and versatile men of this country has disappeared from the scenes of life. Up to a certain malign era in New York politics no lawyer had achieved a more honorable and promising career. As United States district attorney, and district at torney of the city and county of New York he had displayed very remarkable energy, learning and de votion to public interests, but it must be regarded as an unfortunate thing for him that he was twice elected to the mayoralty. In this office he was involved in the treacherous whirlpool of the Tweed regime, and although he was legally and reasonably acquitted of any complicity in that wrong doing, and nobody be lieves that personally he was benefited by it, yet the shock to his proud and chivalrous nature was fatal to his further professional success and turned all the cur rents of his being awry. He was probably the last man to be disillusioned concerning that monster of corrup tion, and the awakening was overwhelming. He after wards merely drifted. He went into journalism, ban ished himself to England, wrote for newspapers, and unsuccessfully strove to get law practice there, re turned to this country, wrote a play and himself acted in it, failing in both points, and at last wrote for the press and magazines, and at the time of his death was engaged on a volume of biographical sketches of the judges of the supreme court in the city of New York. It is to be hoped that this final work was com pleted, or at least had substantially advanced, for there was no man better fitted for it than Mr. Hall. The readers of this magazine have been accustomed to his admirable sketches of some of the great Ameri can lawyers, and will regret that his pen has fallen from his fingers. The writer of these lines has for editorial purposes looked through all the printed rec ords of the New York court of appeals from about volume 40 to volume 123, and it was always like an oasis to a thirsty traveler to run across one of Oakey Hall's inimitable briefs, so learned in law, so skillful in reasoning, so brilliant in wit, so charming in a lit erary view. The present generation of lawyers know nothing of Mr. Hall, and he, in his saddened and disappointed old age, was content that they should
not know him. But he had old friends, whom he had won by his high and good qualities, who will always feel and speak tenderly of him and cherish his memory, and among them the writer of these lines. Not ignorant of misfortune, he pitied the unfortunate, and his rare kindness, humanity, and charity speak loudly from his grave to those who knew him best. The Passing of Executrix. — The legislature of New York, at its last session, passed an act doing away with the term,; executrix," and providing that executors of the feminine gender shall henceforth be called and known as " executors." How the strongminded of the tender sex will take this remains to be seen. Will they construe it as a compliment, ele vating them to the rank of their tyrants as a matter of course, or as a degradation, abolishing a distinc tion hitherto cherished as a privilege? The Thirsty Scholar and his Dog. — In a recent excellent article in the " New York Times," on the vice of over-reporting, is the following allusion : A few of our judges may not be very accomplished writers. They are diffuse and prolix, but it cannot be expected that each shall be a master of style or possess the perfect art of Lord Hardwicke, whose terse ness and clearness in dealing with facts are displayed even in such a case as the serio-comic one of the thirsty scholar and his dog (Brook v. Gaily, Barn. Ch. R. 1 )." It is probable that this allusion suggests no very definite idea to most of the legal profession. The action was on a note given by the plaintiff's intestate, Hobart, three or four days after coming of age, to the defendant, who kept a coffee-house in Mary-le-bone, to the amount of about ^59, for meat and drink, furnished in the course of six months, when Hobart was about twenty years of age. Hobart was attending an academy, and his guardian allowed him seven shillings a week for pocket ex penses ' ' but not very well pleased at the Manner of dressing of Victuals at Mr. Afontiniack's, it being dressed after the French Fashion, he had a mind to get some Provisions somewhere else. So he resorted to the defendant's house, and there ran up a score for meat and drink." "In this Bill there was an Item of Claret, Champaign and Burgundy, drunk on the 517
