taken from the record, and in the very open ing he often proceeds to the discussion of a controverted proposition without a prelimin ary statement. He was born Sept. 4, 1835, in Butler County, Ohio, near Hamilton. He attended the Hamilton Academy, Furman's Semi nary, and a school taught by Prof. F. M. Slack, a noted teacher of his day, and had as a classmate W. D. Howells. In Decem ber, 1850, his father moved to the capital of Indiana. Judge Elliott attended the " Old Seminary," and began to read law early. In May, 1859, he was elected city attorney. During the War of the Rebellion he enlisted in the I32d Indiana Volunteers, and was made a captain, but served much of the time as an aide to General Milroy. In 1865, 1867, and 1869 he was unanimously elected by the Common Council city attorney of Indianapolis. In October, 1870, without op position, he was elected judge of the criminal Court of Marion County; but being unani mously requested by the City Council to ac cept the office of city attorney, he resigned in November, 1872, in order to comply with their request, being unanimously re-elected in May, 1873. In 1876 he was elected a judge of the Superior Court, was renomi nated in 1880, but after having accepted the nomination declined it in order to accept the nomination as judge of the Supreme Court. He took his seat on the Supreme Court bench Jan. 3, 1881,and was re-elected in 1886 for a second term. Aside from the duties these offices placed upon him, he was lecturer to the law class of Butler University, of Central Law School (both at Indianapolis ), and is now a lecturer in the law department of De Pauw Univer sity, located at Greencastle, Ind., and of the Northwestern University, located at Chi cago, Ill. The opinions of Judge Blackford run through thirteen volumes of our reports; of Judge Worden, seventy-four; of Judge Per kins, forty; and of Judge Elliott, sixty; but, unless it be Blackford, Judge Elliott has pre

pared more opinions disposing of cases than any judge who ever sat upon the Supreme Court bench of this State. He has been upon the bench a little over eleven years. It is beyond possibility to enumerate in this short paper the many opinions of importance that have been prepared by him; and to enumerate any as important is almost inevi tably to omit others of greater importance. Perhaps as important a case as has fallen to the lot of a judge to decide was Sanders v. The State (85 Ind. 318), involving the power of the courts as to-day constituted to issue a writ of coram nobis in a criminal case. There are but few cases on record where this has been done, and but one case at that time in America. Sanders had been sent to the penitentiary for life upon a plea of guilty extorted by mob violence, as he alleged. He, after several years, applied for a new trial, on the ground that his plea of guilty was extorted from him; and the Supreme Court held that he was entitled to it. Good win v. The State (96 Ind. 550) is a very im portant criminal case, and shows the manner in which Judge Elliott sought to brush aside the technicalities that had so hedged around the court as to prevent the certain adminis tration of justice in this class of cases. Archer v. The State (106 Ind. 426) involves the validity of a statute designating the place of trial when the blow is struck in one county and death results in another. Little v. The State, 90 Ind. 338, is an ex cellent illustration of the powers of a court to protect itself and punish contempt regard less of any statute authorizing it to do so. This case, taken in connection with Ex parte Griffiths, 118 Ind. 83, and The State v. Noble, 118 Ind. 350, are fine examples of judicial reasoning in asserting the independence of the judiciary and its freedom from legisla tive control. In The State v. Berdetta, 73 Ind. 185, was decided that the stand of a pea nut-vender standing in the street was an ob struction, and that the court itself would so decide without submitting the question to a jury. The City of North Vernon v. Voegier.