unconsciously to sympathize so strongly with him that they would sometimes shield the guilty. One of the causes of Mr. Choate's success was that he frequently de clined cases in which he felt there was not an adequate defence. At the same time, as I have said, his ability to influence and sway the minds of other men has never been sur passed. It is well known that he declined to de fend Dr. Webster at the trial of the famous Parkman-Webster case. He told the friends of the latter that all he would undertake to obtain was a verdict of manslaughter, but, as Mr. Webster's friends preferred to take their chances of an acquittal they thereby lost the assistance of Rufus Choate. I well re member that many people thought at the time that Judge Shaw was not warranted ' from the evidence in this case in making his charge to the jury so adverse as he did to Webster. In fact, this distinguished judge was openly censured, but when Webster finally confessed his guilt, Judge Shaw's po sition was more solidly established than ever before. When Mr. Choate defended criminals, he did so with the conscientious belief that, while the State had secured competent coun cil to conduct the prosecution, a criminal was equally entitled to a careful and able defence. Mr. Choate was known at the bar' for an unrivalled facility of speech. He was never at a loss for a word. His thoughts seemed to move with the rapidity of lightning, and no one surpassed him in quickness of retort. Other persons say that he read everything, understood everything, and remembered everything. At trials he was proverbial for his genial and affable manners which never deserted him upon any occasion except when dealing with a recalcitrant or what he believed to be a dishonest witness. He seemed to have a faculty of mind read
ing, particularly when the mind happened to be that of a juryman. It is stated that in one of his cases when he was confident of the in nocence of his client who was charged with a crime he argued for five hours, determined to bring a single juryman to take his view of the case. By watching closely the expres sion of this man's face he knew just when he had come over to his side, and until then he continued his plea directed to this one jury man. In another case it is related that a jury man, who had been one of twelve to decide five cases at one term of the court all in favor of Mr. Choate's clients, remarked at the end: "How strange it is that Mr. Choate is always on the right side." As he was constantly using his pen when engaged at trials, he evidently committed everything to memory more readily by hav ing first written it down. When in court he felt that success was a duty and his success was phenomenal. He seemed to take as much interest in the small est cases that came to him as in the largest and those promising the largest fees. When he was defending a case in which only a second-hand harness was involved, the op posing council had ridiculed the harness as being only second-hand. "I admit, gentle men of the jury," said Mr. Choate in reply, "that this harness has none of the gloss and glitter that take the eye of the vulgar crowd, but I appeal to you as intelligent jurymen, acquainted with the ordinary affairs of life, whether it is not a safe, soand, substantial, suitable, second-rate, second-hand harness." The Smith will case, one of the most con spicuous in which Mr. Choate was engaged, was tried at Northampton in the summer of 1847. This case was never, I believe, re ported, and the incidents connected with it rest largely as traditions among the people in Northampton. The case briefly was this: A very old and very wealthy man had by his will left a large fortune disinheriting his
