Page:The autobiography of a Pennsylvanian.djvu/130

 believe he never had a client convicted of murder in the first degree, a fact which can probably be explained by his refusal to take a desperate case likely to result in that way. When the Independent Republicans refused to vote for General James A. Beaver for Governor and caused the election of the Democrat, Robert E. Pattison, that gentleman made Cassidy his Attorney General.

For Mann I had almost a sense of horror. He had a burly frame, a furtive eye and great political power. My feeling toward him arose in this way. A man named George W. Winnemore, a spiritualistic dreamer, killed, in a barbarous manner, a woman who was a spiritualistic medium. He was a stranger in the city without a friend and had only two dollars in his pocket. He constituted a good subject with which to establish a reputation for energy and activity in the performance of public duty and he was hurried to the gallows. Being without counsel and penniless, the court appointed Damon Y. Kilgore, the only man at the bar who believed in spiritualism, to defend him. Kilgore had just been admitted to the bar, knew nothing about handling a cause, and, besides, although Winnemore had been an epileptic from childhood, he had neither time nor means for getting evidence together. The trial came off the following week, ending in prompt conviction and the public comment of “well done.” Mann had the reputation of being generous among his friends and good to the poor. Brooke, better known as “Charlie,” came to the bar from the office of a banker. He wore a huge black mustache and drank to excess, but could make a speech and had capacity. He later went to New York, where he established a great reputation as a criminal lawyer and finally died leaving three families and a fortune of a thousand dollars.

Theodore Cuyler, the counsel of the Pennsylvania Railroad, a suave and subtle man, is perhaps best described by the epigram of Samuel Dickson, who said of him that “He had every quality of an advocate. He could persuade a jury 120