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 The Supreme Court of Indiana. York. After reading law awhile in New York, he came on foot to Richmond, Ind., in 1836, where he settled. Reading law in an office during the following winter, he was admitted to practice in the spring of 1837. The same year he became the editor of a local Democratic newspaper, and so contin ued, with an intermission of a year at least, until 1840. The community was Quaker, and intensely Whig.

In 1843 Governor Whitcomb rewarded him for his fealty to party under such dis couraging circum stances as environed him, by appointing him prosecuting at torney. The year fol lowing he was a Polk elector; and during that and the follow ing year he was twice appointed to a seat on the Supreme Court bench, but the Senate declined to confirm the selection. After the legislature ad journed, Governor Whitcomb appointed him to the vacancy occasioned by the WILLIAM E. Senate's failure to confirm his former appointments. Thus Perkins found himself, at the age of thirty-four, on the bench of the highest tribunal of the State; and necessa rily, owing to his several years of political and newspaper work, with a limited knowledge of the law. In 1858 he accepted the ap pointment of professor of law in the North western Christian University, at Indianapolis, and during the years 1870-72 filled a simi lar position in the State University. In 1858 he published the second digest of the Indiana reports; and in the following year published the first work in the State on the

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civil practice. In 1868 he became editor of the " Herald," afterwards the Indianapolis "Sentinel." In 1872 Governor Baker, his ad versary in politics, appointed him Judge of the Marion Superior Court; two years later he was unanimously elected to the same place; and in 1876 he was again placed, by popular vote, upon the bench where he had formerly so long sat. Judge Perkins was an indefati gable and never ceas ing worker; but of him it can scarcely be said that he was a learned man. In his opinions he was fond of quoting the Scrip tures, and often cited works on political economy when dis cussing constitutional questions. He was a man of considerable vigor of mind; but he scarcely arose to the opportunities afforded him in being one of the first judges whose duty it was to interpret the Constitution of 1851, to construe the new codes of 1852, and to mould and con form the unwritten niblack. jaw to their principies and rules of action. This was a great opportunity which he did not fully grasp; probably because he did not have that exact training in his career at the bar when a young man which seems essential to the making of a great judge. The last three years of his judicial career did not add any laurels to those he had already won; for he was then, in mind, too old a man for a place on the highest tribunal of the State. Andrew Davison. Davison was one of the four judges who first took their seats as members of the new