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Show As I Remember Them yudge R. S. Mesick By C. C. Goodwin FIFTY years ago a man Who possessed $200,-000 $200,-000 was considered very rich. '" When the Comstock was discovered and it seemed to be pitching to the west, the hillside below the great lode to the east was covered with locations wherever there were croppings of ore. When suddenly at a depth o about two hundred feet the Comstock was found broken off, and with a little sinking, and drifting to the east found again, pitching to the east, then the question at once arose as to the titles on he surface hillside. The claim of those on the lode was that with their location they had a right to trace the vein werever it pitched, west or east. Then there were o such pitched legal contests created as were never seen before. The fees paid to attorneys were such as had never been paid before, and that naturally drew to the Comstock an array of attorneys more able than was ever seen before among that number of attorneys. Perhaps General Charles S. Williams was the Nestor of them all. He had been a great lawyer and attorney general in New York. But around him were an assemblage of attorneys, all of whom were great. We may name such men as C J. Hillier, Thomas Williams, Moses Kirkpatrlck, Wm. M .Stewart, Judge Joseph Baldwin, who had made a great reputation in Alabama before he went to California; his son, Judge "Sandy" Baldwin, Bald-win, C. E. DeLong, Horace Smith, Jonas Seeley, Sunderland, Crittenden, Aldrich, Hundley, Judge I Cy Wallace, John B. Felton and a score more. But the first obstacle was the courts. The i "United States courts were made up as a rule of broken-down politicians, sent west to pay political po-litical debts or to get rid of their importunities. They were in a stiange field, questions that had never been submitted to courts before were be fore them. In a legal way, as a rule, they were utterly incompetent, and a great many of them were corrupt. The brightest one of them all in j a little while got to selling his opinions, and I worse still, a little later ho got to selling out to both sides, which was a sure sign, under the ruling rul-ing of Zinc Barnes, that he must be a ilttle ciooked, because Zinc's definition of an honest man was "a sonof-a-gun who would stay bought." I The suits were multiplied, the courts were far I behind, and it was a pitiable spectacle to see those great attorneys trying to get a little information infor-mation through the brains of those incompetent judges. The situation was one of the impelling causes that lead to making Nevada a state before it had either a population or developed wealth to entitled It to statehood. But the state was admitted ad-mitted and then It. S. Mesick stooped down to ac-f' ac-f' cept a district judgeship that he might help clear the callendars and get the courts running on a legitimate basis. Just as Judga Mesick had finished his course in Yale and then his course at the law department of Yale he joined the Argonauts who went ro California. Ho located in Marysville. In those days Marysville had a wonderful bar. Judge I Stephen J. Field, who afterwards sat more than thirty-three years as justice 'of the Supreme Court 1 of the United States, was practicing law there. There were many other great lawyers. Mesick's legal abilities wore acknowledged at once, but in those days he was a little shy, duo perhaps to a lingering provincialism which made him rather think that with his accomplishments end his training he had a certain dignity to main tain. In those days he was as good a lawyer as fudge Field, and practiced law in Marysville un-JIl un-JIl the Comstock was discovered. ) When he went upon the bench in Virginia City he was surrounded by more temptations than ever a judge was before; but he so bore himself in that office that when his short term was out, he had the full respect of all the bar and of all the people. Beyond that it was plain to the bar and to the people that he was about the greatest man that ever gave the best years o his life to the golden coast. He was not only as great a lawyer as Field, but he possessed elements of statesmanship which were denied Justice Field. In Nevada his exclusiveness wore away. Some people had called that exclusiveness pride, but really it was but a dignity which he held to bo due his profession, mixed with a little natural shyness, and while he mellowed down, he maintained main-tained that dignity to the very end. Through his friction against men on the Comstock, ho took on the wisdom to note that all around him in every walk of life?, were intellectual giants; that in the original elements into which society was there resolved, ikhtest brain could only aspire to be an eqi nd not a superior. And he was surrounded by orains, some of which were cleavers and battle axes, some Damascus blades and in the wielding of those weapons they were were all trained until they had become real"glad-iators. real"glad-iators. There were trials there in which a spectator spec-tator saw only flashings of great lights; there were arguments which Burke would have listened list-ened to enchanted; there were bursts of legal eloquence which would have charmed Clay or Prentice. It was an arena where giants contested. con-tested. In that arena whether on the bench or at the bar, Judge Mesick was a captain. No subtillty could jostle him into making a weak ruling; no artifice could prcparo an argument that he could not seize and puncture if within it there was one weak pont or false principle embodied. But it was not only as a lawyer and jurist that ho was great. Had he remained in the east and married some woman great enough and true enough to have held up his strong arms, there could not have been a place so high that he might not have justly aspired to attain it. Ho would have been justly rated the peer of the very highest; as scholar, lawyer, judge, orator, statesman. states-man. But the customs of the coast had their influence in-fluence upon him. He was not free from some human weaknesses. Moreover down deep he was one of tho most lovable and genial of men. Despite De-spite his reserve he would, could he have had his way, "have lived by tho road," where he would have met his fellow men, mot them with their virtues and faults and affiliated with them all. Ho was altogether a manly man, oven when he gave way to his weaknesses. The divinity within with-in him shone out always, the same under the light of a tallow dip as under an electric chandelier. He had courage that nev-eo failed him, ho had integrity in-tegrity and a self-respect and respect for his profession that nothing could turn aside. A very rich man on one occasion stated to him the points of a case and asked him if he could win it in court. His answer was: "I might, but I wJ" not try." "Why not?" asked the man. "You are not very rich and there are thousands of dollars in this for you if you will undertake it." "But I will not," said Mesick. "And wihy not?" tisked the would-be client. "Because it is a dishonest proposition; because be-cause you are hoping through the power of your money to perpetrate a great wrong, which, if M you could, you would have to prostitute the pro M fession of the law and disgrace the court to ac- M co'mplish your end. I will not be a party to it'" M Then the man flared up and intimated that M there was a great difference between his own M friendship or enmity. To this Mesick merely M pointed to the door and said: "Get out and do not stand on the order of your going, but go at once." M Half an hour later he looked up from his M desk and said to his clerk: H "I am mad through and through at myself." M "What for?" asked the clerk. H And he replied, "That I did not kick that M scoundrel out of this office and all of the way M down the street." He lived sixteen years in Virginia City, then fl removed to San Francisco, where he died in M 1897 or '98. He died worth only a few thousand M dollars, though in a single case the Fair divorce M case he received a fee of $200,000. fl I happened to be in Virginia City shortly after M his death and at dinner in the old French res- taurant the propreitor ca'me in and We were men- M tioning those who had lived there and who had M died, among the rest Mesick. He said: M "Mesick was here last spring, just the same M Mesick as he was of old. His wine bill for two M days was $36.00." H The grievious thing is that such a man was M never known outside the few who were close to M him, when had he had a little different nature, M had he had more desiro for selfish glory, he M might have stood with the very highest. Never M on this coast, never anywhere, was there a more M clear-cut mind, a more accomplished man in books M and in his profession. While he mingled with M his fellow men on terms of equality, he at tho M same time moved in a sphere of his own. He M was a glorified scholar until the last. When M the world -got to be a burden to him, he could go M in his library and commune with all of the great M souls that had preceded him in this world, only M when he read the great thoughts, they always H haunted him, a thought of his own was that what ho read was not new, that such thoughts had H been his familiars all his life. H He should have gone to tho senate from Ne- H vada; ho should have gone with Senator Stew- H art. That body would ihavo recognized in him H in a moment that a master had come, and the H brightest of them would have fought shy of an H encounter with him. H He was surrounded by great souls, but his H surroundings were never what they should have H been. He never could have found any array of H intellects that he would not have stood a peer H among; he never could have found a class of H men that could have been his schoolmasters. His H brain was acute; it either held all the knowledge H in the world, or an open door to all the lenowl- H edge in the world; and if his thoughts had been K directed away from the fierce' encounters jvhlch H were met on the Comstock and lead up into the H heights of literature or of statesmanship, he H would have been at home. H He died of bronchitis and shortly before his H death, when a friend bending over him sympa- H thized with his great sufferings, and after tho H medical men around him had tried every way to sooth his pain, his friend spoke to him of his jH approaching death. And he answered, with a H faint smile on his lips: H "Death will be a cure for the sufferings I am H bearing now." H We hope that rest has come to him and that H in the sphere where his soul has "ound a biding H place, there will be congenial spirits enough of H the very highest, to take away from him all H regret that he was called so soon from the H earth. H |