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Show GENTLEMEN: WHAT'S THE IDEA? The sudden resignation of Judge John A. Marshall staggered the community. The "Iron judge" chose to terminate a long and honorable career in a most unusual manner. When the fminent jurist stepped down from his high estate S after nineteen years of sterling service to the nation and the community, it was not strange that the vise ones should indulge in idle speculation specu-lation over such an extraordinary incident. In the absenco of a satisfactory explanation, a host of the judge's former friends and associates ventured ven-tured to supply one of their own, and the story they told drew its real significance, not from their words, but from their actions. Wo suspect that had he been able to foresee the flurry that his quiet departure provoked, the reticent jurist, although al-though secretive by nature and always shunning publicity, might have been tempted to give the public a bill of particulars in explanation of his " ; action. This would have undoubtedly set all things right and besides, it might have saved many of the community's best citizens the trouble ot manufacturing an explanation when none was necessary. So far as the general public is concerned, con-cerned, the reason given that Judge Marshall had grown tired of the grind on the bench, and that ! he preferred to spend the remainder of his days in a private and more profitable manner, was J sufficient in itself and should have afforded a fitting ending to the chapter. Men suffer more from the foolishness of their friends than they do from the frowns of their enemies. The former in their anxiety to garnish ; the virtues usually succeed in inviting a closer inspection of the vices. As a rule, one's friends ' will over-paint the character picture, and oftimes J the unconcerned are thereby incited to look be hind the canvass. All of which prompts us to lemark that men and women are very much alike; when they think they have a secret to keep they feel that it will not bo safe unless they get the whole neighborhood to help them keep it. And we are prompted to make the further remark re-mark that if this paper hadn't any better sense of the propriety of things than many of our foremost fore-most citizens have, coupled with its desire to keep its own house in order and its regard for the privacies of others, there might be a noticeable depopulation of the community. It strikes us moreover that no individual may of right expect a public medium of thought to keep silent on sublets sub-lets that he himself persists in carrying on the lip of his tongue. |