Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 04.pdf/40

 The Supreme Court of Georgia. The decision was adverse to the side repre sented by a strong-minded but utterly illite rate practitioner, who sometimes tarried at the wine-cup with the usual consequences to his eyes. He said, in protest, "Judge, I think it was bad enough to lose my case; I never expected to be called a red-eyed possum."

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"Some of the most vigorous brain-work of the world is done in the ranks of our profession. Our work concerns the highest of all temporal interests, property, reputation, the peace of families, liberty, life even, the foundations of society, the jurispru dence of the world, and sometimes the arbitra tions and peace of nations. The world accepts the work, but forgets the workers. The waste hours of Lord Uacon and Sergeant Talfourd were devoted to letters, and each is infinitely better re membered for his mere Joseph H. Lumpkin literary diversions than was a fountain of elo for his whole long and laborious professional lifequence, both at the work. The victory gained bar and (as will be by the counsel of the explained) on the seven bishops was worth bench. He had a infinitely more to the magnetic personality, people of England than a handsome presence, all the triumphs of the a commanding figure, Crimean war. But one a graceful bearing, a I-ord Cardigan led a fool winning voice, a per ishly brilliant charge suasive manner, a against a Russian battery brilliant imngination, at Balaklava, and became fervid sensibilities, immortal. Who led the strong intellectual great charge of the seven power, — the whole confessors of the English Church against the Eng panoply of the born lish crown at Westminster orator. As an advo Hall? You must go to cate before the jury, your books to answer. his power was pro They were not on horse digious. Stories are back. They wore gowns told of jurors who, in instead of epaulettes. spite of the interposi The truth is, our work is JOSEPH HENRY LUMPKIN. tion of the court, at like that of the little in times made audible sects that in the unseen responses to his fervid appeals, and at other depths of the ocean lay the coral foundations of times sprang in excitement to their feet. uprising islands. In the end come the solid land, This is tradition, and tradition only. There the olive and the vine, the habitations of man, the arts and industries of life, the havens of the sea is no record which preserves a solitary evi dence of the power of Lumpkin, or Walter and ships riding at anchor. But the busy toilers T. Colquitt, or Benjamin H. Hill, or Robert which laid the beams of a continent in a drear)' Toombs, or William Dougherty as advocates. waste are entombed in their work and forgotten in their tombs." Richard Henry Wilcle, a Georgia lawyer, and not the equal of any of these, wrote one It is necessary to explain the statement poem of twenty-four lines, and has achieved that Lumpkin was eloquent on the bench. an immortality which all their purely pro He was accustomed to deliver his opinions fessional labors failed to secure. How true orally. During the first years of its exist are these words of a Connecticut judge : — ence the court was peripatetic. It sat in 4