Page:The autobiography of a Pennsylvanian.djvu/252

 is better that I should take the chance of dying of a tumor than that men should be taught to cut up living dogs to get possible information. A man may give the money he has stolen from a scoundrel to the poor, but that does not justify the theft. To the Jesuit doctrine of doing harm that good may come of it we had better say “Avaunt!” “Vade retro Sathanas!”

On the 16th of Febrary, 1893, I came pretty near to destruction. For several days I had been trying a rather important land damage case of Lukens vs. The City, in the second-story room of Congress Hall, the windows of which look upon Chestnut Street. I finished charging the jury about three o'clock. The plaintiff came to me to ask whether I would not wait and take the verdict. I hesitated for a moment, but concluding that it would make little difference to him and it was uncertain how long they would deliberate, I told the jury to seal their verdict and bring it in the next morning and I adjourned the court. I had hardly got outside the room before the ceiling fell, filling the room with debris and crushing the bench at which I had been sitting and my chair to the floor. Various coatings of plaster had been applied through the century until they were eight inches thick and as solid as rock. This mass hung over me like the sword of Damocles, ready to fall with the occurrence of any unusual rumble on the street, and that afternoon there was no place on earth more seemingly safe and in reality more dangerous. A wit at the bar said: “Fiat justitia ruat ceiling.”

About this time began the first talk about sending me to the Supreme Court of the state, and it received some support from the bar and the newspapers. Fell, however, who was my superior in the court, had ambitions in that direction. We talked the matter over together, with the result that I concluded to make no effort at that time and so told him.

In 1893 a number of gentlemen in the city interested in the collection and publication of out-of-the-way books, 238