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VOL. V.

No. 9.

BOSTON.

SEPTEMBER, 1893.

JASPER YEATES. By BENJAMIN CHAMPXEVS ATLEE. A LAWYER'S vocation is ever running and jolting, amid so much confusion, that into new fields of usefulness. The even the builders themselves well-nigh de flight of time changes the customs and spaired of ever seeing the machine stand to manners, and they in turn the conduct of gether long enough to do any practical work. Strong and straightforward indeed must men and women. Old laws pass out; new be the man who could stand the temptations ones come in. Old decisions are rejected; and trials of the time. new ones made, quoted in a hundred cases, As his contemporaries estimated him, and then overruled, all before the ink with Judge Yeates was one of the most brilliant which they have been printed is fairly dry. But though the outward forms may change, men of his day. Strong and intellectual in mind, placed by his own labors in a position there are, connecting the lawyer of this de cade with the lawyer of a century ago, the where he could show his ability, he made old unchanging principles and bases. These his work part of the history of law in all must study, all must know; they stand Pennsylvania. above and beyond the changing forms and Jasper Yeates was born in Philadelphia, matters which go to make up a modern law April 7, 1745. His early boyhood days were yer's life, so that, aside from the public spent in the best schools of his State. In 1761 he graduated with high honors (B.A.J eminence and standing a lawyer of a cen tury ago may have attained, his professional from the College of Philadelphia; the de brethren of to-day feel an almost personal gree of A.M. came soon after. interest in his life and doings; and if that Natural gifts and personal desires caused life has been twofold in its usefulness, — a the study of the law to be taken up, and for life of service to the profession and a life of some years a thorough course of study in service to the State, — we are the more in the laws of his native State was followed terested, and feel the more repaid for our assiduously; then realizing that a study of the foundations of law at the fountain-head investigation. The times following the Revolution were would be of great benefit to him, he went to even more trying than the years of war. London, and resided for some time at the К ven after the Constitution had been adopted Inns of Court. and fully ratified, the restlessness of the The year 1765 saw his return to the Colo people was permitted to work in channels nies, and his admission to the Lancaster Bar. reaching into the most vital parts of the The profession at once felt the influence of government. Not that there were numerous the brilliant young lawyer, and a large prac or dangerous acts of force, not that riot and tice was soon established; in his hands were robbery ran rampant, but the machinery of placed many important cases, all of which government started with so much jarring were treated in a most remarkably brilliant So