| Show GOSSIP ABOUT GREAT MEN washington D C aug 8 1893 the death of justice blatchford will make another change in the supreme court and deaths have been more rapid here during the past few years than in any other branch of our government chief justice waite died when he seemed to be in his prime justice miller though he had served on the bench twenty eight years seemed hale and hearty just before he passed away and no one here seemed to think but that justice bradley would last forever his wib wiry frame seemed to be made of steel an and he was regularly in his seat year in and year out he was one of the hardest workers on the bench and he put in about twelve hours out of every twenty four it was the same with judge miller I 1 dont think justice lamar overworked himself he got the grip and this added to his careless habits of eating and exercise helped to carry him oft off he had no rules of work and he sometimes put in twenty hours at a stretch justice blatchford was more regular in his his habits he looked more tike like an english statesman than an american jurist and he was the personification of the eminently respectable gentleman the other justices iusti ces are extremely healthy and the court as it is now constituted would make a good hotel advertisement justice stice harlan must weigh over two 5 hundred u adred pounds 0 und S his eyes are bright and h his is tj cheeks feek s are re rosy justice gray is fat and rotund and his skin is as clean and fair as that of a baby both brewer and brown are the personification of physical vigor and the chief justice though his hair is white and his mustache is silvery has eyes full of life and he trots about as though he were walking on rubber none of them look as though they had much to worry them and they have forgotten their first struggles of the bari bar when as in the case of chief justice fuller they were glad to get fees of five dollars and had not yet begun to hope lor for positions worth a year HOKE SMITHS FIRST FEE puring during my chat with the hon hoke A smith the other day I 1 spoke to him of his law practice and asked him it if he remembered the first lee fee he received for legal services he is you know one of odthe the most famous lawyers of the south he made last year I 1 am told just out of his practice and his earnings right along range from to per year fie e laughed as I 1 put the above aboa question an and 4 replied yes I 1 r remember member it very well it w was f for or the settling of an injunction mhd case was decided in atlanta at II 11 monday and the situation was such that the injunction would have to be served at I 1 n I 1 tuesday the party interested lived away off in the interior and it was a question whether we could reach him in time I 1 took the train that afternoon tor for gainesville and the next morning at 4 I 1 was in a buggy riding off on into the mountains with my injunction I 1 reached the place at 1030 driving my horse as fast as he could go all the way and succeeded in serving the injunction in time the fee I 1 got for it was twenty five dollars and it seemed to me very good pay how about your first law case mr secretary what was it it was the de ending of a negro who had chad been arrested for arson was the reply the penalty was hanging and I 1 too took up the mans case and cleared him this gave me such a reputation among the negroes that they all came to me to defend them when they got into trouble I 1 took their cases for practice sometimes getting small fees and sometime none at all I 1 soon got a better class of business however before long I 1 had one of the best practices in the south I 1 dont think there is any more pleasant work than that of the law I 1 like it and I 1 shall go back to it as soon as I 1 leave washington SOME FAMOUS FIRST this twenty five dollars which hoke smith received as his first legal tee fee was a big amount in in comparison with those of our other great lawyers henry hen ry clays first fee amounted to just fifteen shillings and the late justice lamar got two jugs of handmade hand made whisky for his first legal services john sherman had to borrow fifty dollars to go to columbus to be admitted for practice before the supreme court of ohio and john H mitchell Ml of oregon who now makes and upward a year at the law was refused credit by a carpenter whom he asked to make an office table for him at the time he began his law practice in portland senator ingalls first law lee fee was from a carpenter and he took his py say out in trade the carpenter made him im a table and a desk for trying the suit and ingalls son uses this dest as a part ot of his office furniture today the late benjamin butler made his first real start at the law in attaching a mill wheel for one of his clients in lowell and leland stanford once told me that he made just 1200 the first year that he practiced law in wisconsin Afire A fire burnt down his law office and library and this it was that sent him west to make his fortune HOW presidents HAVE MADE MONEY I 1 understand that the pros prospects acts are that ex president harrisons harrison law law practice will be more than doubled by the reputation he has made as president and grover cleveland is said to have made a fortune during the four years he was out of office nearly all the dents have been lawyers but none of those of the past have made the vast sums that our lawyers make today thomas jefferson Jeff early jumped to the front of the he t bar of virginia and he was making a year when he was married madison and monroe were good lawyers before they with politics and hayes had a fair practice andrew johnson liked nothing better than to make a speech att at the hebar bar he studied law while he was at the tailors bench I 1 and graduated from it to the bar martin van buren is said to have been a good lawyer james buchanan was making a year when he left the law for politics and harrisons practice was a valuable one SOME COSTLY LAWYERS it costs something to get one of these great statesmen to try a suit for you evarts receives about ten dollars apiece for each and every word in the word sentences which he uses in his arguments before the supreme court and edmunds was published not long ago as having an income of oooo io from his law practice one of the most famous lawyers of this country was a jew who was connected with tile the southern confederacy I 1 refer to the late judah P benjamin who served at different times in the cabinet of jefferson davis davir as attorney general secretary of state and secretary of war he left this coun country t ry with only ten dollars in his pocket at the close of the war and fled to england he opened a law office in london and d during i the eighteen years which le he practiced there his fees amounted to he began his work in london by writing editorials while he was waiting 4 for clients and his first years income was only 2000 the next year it doubled and during the last seven years of his practice he made from to J a year this was especially wonderful in that benjamins law practice had been before this entirely in the united states he had before the supreme court while he was mem ber of the united states senate and at 1 this time he got big fees some of which were in the neighborhood of 19 4 LAW PRACTICE AT washington some of the best paying practice is that before the government department at washington the fees are often contingent and where the amounts are large the lawyers get a large percentage in case they win A number of famous lawyers will not undertake a case without a retainer roscoe conkling is said to have received a fee of from the Apol linaris water company for arguing in its lavor favor before the treasury department ex secretary stephen B elkins told me last winter that he once made in an hour by presenting a land case before the interior S department and he said that he made as much as a year for some time after he left congress in practicing law here speaking peaking of retainers it often surprises a client to be asked to pay down noney money before any work is done and an instance of this kind was told here the other day by one of our leading lawyers concerning daniel webster the amount in the suit was about and webster was asked what the retaining fee would be the reply was 1000 one thousand dollar sl exclaimed the client yes replied webster but y you u will not have to take it and you beeg need gotlif you do not wish it I 1 cant engage to A try the suit without a retainer if I 1 am not retained I 1 may be approach approached hed b by the other party and may get a mu much larger fee from them than from you 11 I 1 am retained I 1 will of course have to try the suit for you this frightened the client and he wrote out a check for 1000 and gave it to mr webster who put it into his pocket and then said 1 I will now give you my advice on the case it is that if you can compromise the suit on fairly good terms you had better do it I 1 will not charge you a anything anya for that advice the client expressed his thanks and left he did compromise the suit aila and then came back to webster mr web ster congratulated himself on his success and was turning to other business when the visitor said of course I 1 shall not need your ser vices mr webster certainly not sirel sir and how about I 1 paid you he went on evidently expecting to have it handed back to him oh replied mr webster while a broad substantial smile flitted flirted across his dark face you dont seem to understand that was a retaining fee called in an law a retainer by virtue of the contract I 1 also became a retainer what am I 1 to retain if not my tee fee OUR FIRST SULTAN I 1 am glad the sultan of is iscom com inato this country to see the fair it will give our people a different idea of the rulers of the fair east we imagine them a set of heathens heathers he athens ignoramuses ignoramus es they are in fact generally well educated and are as smart as we are I 1 visited this sultan during my tour around the world and spent two hours with him in his palace near the straits of malacca Mu lacca he speaks eng english lish fluently and he has spent pent a part of of hl his S li ii e in in london he knows most ot of the london nobility and has been entertained by the queen he has a number of pictures of the royal famil family of england in his palace and I 1 found that he knew all about america when he received me he had a lavender silk skirt wound around his waist over his trousers and above this he had on a sack coat of white duck A turban of brown plush decorated with a great diamond medallion covered his head sad and he had a diamond pendant on his breast and diamond rings on all his fingers he has a bout about ten million of diamonds ond sand and he often wears rings of diamonds and emeralds and diamonds and rubies he had bracelets of solid gold rope on each of his wrists and his palace was guarded by soldiers in gorgeous s uniform I 1 talked to him somewhat 0 of f his travels and he told me that he needed only to OF go 0 to america to COMP complete lete his tour of the globe and the pro provability prop ability is that he will come to new york and go home by san francisco he lives just halt hall way around the world from us and an augur hole might be bored through the earth at a certain angle from the capitol here at washington and strike his capitol in the sultan is is a mohammedan and his kingdom is a little bigger than massachusetts it contained con consider able good mineral lands but its chief products are coffee and gambler gambier a plant which is usel used for tanning the most of the labor is done by the chinese and the sultan encourages chinese immigration in every we way tv his people are malays balays who will not work the sultan told ld me chis his only hope for the develop tal j of f his country came from the C ese A NEW STORY OF COLUMBUS speaking ot of the worlds fair I 1 heard a new story of columbus last night it was one which ex senator william M evarts told some time ago at a dinner given in washington by john B alley of massachusetts alley was you know mixed u up in the credit Mo bilier and he SiP has in different erent speculations made a great fortune he has been living in washington during the winters for some years and his dinners are famous mr alley has a very large acquaintance with great r eat men and he likes to talk about vi his s experiences with them As the story atory goes he frequently indulges in reminiscences at his dinners during the one at which this incident occurred he had monopolized the conversation he had told his bis guests what president buchanan had bad asked mr alley and how mr alley had replied to mr buchanan of how abraham lincoln had greeted alley on a certain occasion and how salmon B chase had advised with him on another As alley told his last story his eye ye caught a queer smile playing around the wrinkled lips of senator evarts and he asked him if he had not something to say senator evarts replied 1 I have been thinking while you have been speaking mr alley of one of the most stirring incidents in our history it was when columbus was on his way to the discovery of america you remember the anxiety of the great discoverer as the time arrived when he had calculated he should arrive on the shores of the new country morning after morning he appeared early on the deck straining raming si his eyes in looking toward the west at last one day as he gazed through his glass his face was seen to shine with surprise n se he looked long and earnestly and finally n ily handed the glass to his most intimate friend at his side exclaimed there alley thank god there is land at last embrace me alley our fortunes are madel the teller of this story does not give the response of mr alley HOW MAJ POND LOST A FORTUNE maj J P pond has been in washington this week he is one of the brightest lecture managers of the united states and he has made fortunes for a number of people he made oooo io for stanley and nearl nearly v as much for kennan he made a nice thing for bill nye and he made last year for thomas nelson page peares lecture business brought in four months to the arctic explorer and max orell has made several brick houses through pond he would make a success at any business he has a giant frame every cubic inch of which is packed with energy y and his brain never stops he seldom bom makes a mistake in a lecture though he has in his lifetime once or twice made a mistake in business the chief event of this kind to him was in connection with telephone bell bell had invented the telephone but he did not see that its great value was to be in the carrying on of conversation at a distance he wanted to lecture on the invention and he came to pond and asked him to manage it the major looked at him and was ake skeptical he refused to undertake the job glut but he said mr bell you are making a great mistake in wasting your time in lecturing in g on that invention if it is all you c laim claim for it and I 1 think it is it ought ht to be used by business houses in in carrying on conversations with their customers or by connecting different branches of the same manufactory bell went away he came back a few days later and asked the major to organize a company and push the telephone on the rilan plan he had suggested maj torild pon d was inclined to do so but he had a partner at this time and his partner objected to the scheme as being outside the lecture business the result was the matter was dropped bell got another manager and made millions had pond gone one in with him he would undoubtedly gave have been one of the richest men in the united states today PEARY AND HIS TRIP speaking of peary by the way he will hardly be back before a couple of years but when he comes he will undoubtedly go back on the platform he is an indefatigable worker and there is do man in the country who can do so much on so little weight he dont weigh more than |
