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The Supreme Court of North Carolina.

His capacity as a business man was shown in the executive talent displayed by him on the Superior Court bench, where there is full scope for it, and in which particular the occupants of that bench are more often lacking than in a knowledge of law. In administering the criminal law upon the circuit, the extent of punishment depends very largely on the discretion of the judge.

Judge Ruffin's sen tences, while not cruel, were such as to be a terror to evjl-doers. His practical mind saw that punishment was not vengeance visited upon the criminal, nor was it intended to be re formatory, but rather an example to deter others from the com mission of offences, and that the protection to law-abiding men was to prevent violations of law by fear of pun ishment. He was no sentimentalist. He knew that the investi gation and the punish ment of crime was ex pensive to the good menof thecommunity, JOHN D. and by the nature of his sentences he left no doubt of his intention to fulfil the purpose of the court by visiting offences against law with unpleasant consequences to the evil doer. Consequently, wherever he rode the circuit crime decreased. He sat upon the Supreme Court bench twenty-three years consecutively, from 1829 to 1852, during nineteen years of which he was Chief-Jus tice, besides one year and a half after his re turn to the bench. His opinions thus cov ered nearly a quarter of a century, and will be found in 35 volumes, from 13 N. C. (2 Dev.) to 45 N. C. (Bus.) inclusive, and also

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in the 51 & 57 N. C. He wrote while on the bench more opinions than any other judge. His opinions embrace almost every topic of the civil and criminal law. They are usually long, full, and show the concentration of a powerful mind upon the subject in hand. His opinions are well beaten out. The print of the hammer is there. His opinions have been cited with approbation by the Federal and State supreme courts, by eminent text-writers, and have been quoted as au thority in Westmins ter Hall. He reached the rare distinction of being equally great both in the common law and as an equity lawyer. Pearson prob ably equalled him as a common-law law yer, but fell far short of him in the grasp and application of the great principles of equity. While conservative, as judges and lawyers necessarily are, he was not a Chinese copy ist " of things long outworn." Where the TOOMER. changed condition of things in this country as compared with England, or improved modes of thought, or "the better reason" called for a modification of precedent, he did not hesitate to declare it. In the criminal law he was above the pettiness of "word-splitting," and obeyed the will of the legislature, — so often expressed in enact ments previously slighted by the courts, — that technicalities should be disregarded by the judges when not of the substance of the issues involved. In States. Moses, 13 N. C. (2 Dev.) 452, he construed the statute to mean that all defects and omissions in in

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