Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 03.pdf/191

166 to examine him reported that he lacked the requisite qualifications. The applicant insisted upon an examination by the court, with this result : —

"What do you understand law to be?"

"Law, sir, — law, — yes, sir, — is that which governs the people, and out of which the lawyers make a living."

"But what does Blackstone say about it?"

"Ah (pompously), excuse me, Judge, I have not read the learned author."

"Well, what does Kent say about it?"

"Kent, Kent, — well, really, Judge, to tell you the truth, I have not read him either, but promise myself the pleasure of doing so at an early day."

After a few other questions with no better results, the judge, with one of his kindest smiles, said, — "I will take pleasure in granting you a license, for ''I think you can do as little harm in the profession as any one I know." (Bay's Bench and Bar of Missouri, an interesting book, unfortunately full of errors and inaccuracies, but which has greatly aided in the preparation of this sketch.)

It was doubtless one whose license obtained in some such manner as this, that but a few years ago brought a suit for a young woman against the mother of a lover who had deserted her, to recover damages for breach of promise, with aggravating circumstances, and urged the theory that the defendant supplied the proximate cause, in that if her son had not been born, the wrongs complained of would not have happened, — at least not through the instrumentality of that particular member of the male sex.

John Rice Jones.

No facts relating to the life and doings of Judge Jones are ascertainable from any person reputed as likely to know them. Existing records show him to have been a resident of Pike County at the time of his appointment. He participated in the decision of about one hundred and forty cases, and seems to have been the dissenting judge of his day. Fifteen dissenting, or non-concurring, opinions by him are reported. In twenty-eight of the one hundred and forty cases mentioned, he delivered the opinion of the court. In one of his dissenting opinions he remarked that he had not " been in the practice of the law for some time." (Holmes v. Elliott, 1 Mo. 41, 45.) Whether it is that circumstance which induced the large proportion of dissents and the comparatively small number of majority opinions, or whether the wholesome lesson is to be drawn that a judge prone to elaborate dissenting opinions is thereby clogged in writing opinions that are to stand for the law, is a question beyond the scope of this sketch. In Brown v. Ward, 1 Mo. 209, Judge Jones apologized for the brevity of his opinion because of "the very weak state of health which I have been in for these weeks past." This illness seems to have terminated fatally, for he was not on the bench after November, 1823, and died during the following winter.

Rufus Pettibone

was was born in Litchfield, Connecticut, May 26, 1784, and graduated from Williams College in 1805. Choosing the law for his profession, he began the study of it in Onondago County, New York, and concluded it in the office of the well-known Abraham Van Vechten of Albany. Admitted in 1809, he settled at Vernon, Oneida County, New York, and in 1812 was elected to represent that county in the State Legislature. He removed to Missouri in 1818, and was at once offered a partnership by Col. Rufus Easton, one of the most prominent men, and probably the leading lawyer of his day at the St. Louis Bar. Judge Pettibone espoused the cause of opposition to the recognition of slavery in the then embryotic State, and was defeated for election to the Constitutional Convention of 1820 on that issue. Appointed as a circuit judge in 1821, he served with general satisfaction until his appointment to succeed Judge Cook in 1823. On the appellate bench he gave great