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The Green Bag Or else for contempt he will quickly get bounced.

But the lesson to learn and the sooner 'tis done The better, my readers will find, every one, Is not to demand of all slanders the truth,

Nor an eye for an eye or a tooth for a tooth. And if you are hit on the cheek by a blow, It has wisely been said, "Tum the other also." But ne'er go to court when the fires of hate Are aflame in your soul; — it is better to wait. P. A. SAWYER.

The Interest and Value of the Study of Legal Biographyl BY HON. Hmrron L. CAnsoN' R. President and Members of the Bar of Rhode Island: —

I appreciate deeply the distinction

conferred by asking me to share with you so interesting an occasion. I was

and of lawyers I shall say nothing be cause the place is very peaceable and healthy," and then he added this pious prayer, “Long may we be preserved

from the pestiferous drugs of the one

a little at a loss to understand why a

and the abominable'loquacity of the

Philadelphia lawyer should be selected, particularly when I recall that a Phila delphia lawyer in the early days was not

other." Now, the doctors and lawyers, in the early history of Pennsylvania, had quite

highly regarded.

a neck and neck race.

I remember picking

William Penn,

up in one of the old book stalls of

before he left London, appointed a

London, some ten or twelve years ago, a brochure of about ninety pages, printed in London fifteen years after

lawyer, a man by the name of Crispin who was his cousin, to be the first Chief Justice of the province, and it happened

William Penn had landed at Old Chester, and written by Gabriel Thomas, in which, after giving an account of "ye

coming to America there was a doctor

flourishing province of Pennsylvania," which at that time consisted chiefly of

the town of Philadelphia and some two thousand people, and after describing the butchers, the bakers, the brick layers, the masons, the carpenters and the jewelers, the author said, "Of doctors lAn address delivered before the annual meeting of the Rhode Island Bar Association, at the ban quet held December 5, 1910. 2Of Philadelphia, former Attorney-General of Pennsylvania, author of "History Of the Supreme Court of the United States," "The Genesis of Blackstone's Commentaries and their Place in Legal Literature," etc.

that on the ship in which Crispin was of the name of Nicholas Moore. Crispin fell sick, and according to the experi ence not altogether beyond our own, it happened that the doctor survived the patient, and thus it came about that it was a doctor who became the first Chief

Justice of Pennsylvania and it was a doctor also who was the first Speaker of the province. Pluralism was catch ing, for at one time Thomas McKean held the offices of President of the Continental Congress, Chief Justice of

Pennsylvania, and Governor of the state of Delaware. They had to borrow men from Pennsylvania, in those days, in