Objected to, and objection sustained by the court, Judge Barnard remarking, that "if he admitted that question, they would then have to bring up Mr. Osgood, and ascertain whether $70,000 had not been paid as counsel fee in that suit."

Mr. Field said that, as all his questions were ruled out, he had nothing further to ask the witness.

The court here took a recess of twenty minutes.

One point in this examination is calculated to excite curiosity. It was a strange statement of Judge Barnard's, that for several weeks past he had been dogged by detectives. Yet such was undoubtedly the case. One process in this litigation was actually sustained by the affidavits of spies. The incomings and outgoings of the magistrate had been watched. By one affidavit, of the 19th of March, he had been accused of a knowledge of and participation in a plan, undoubtedly organized by the Vanderbilt party, to kidnap Mr. Drew in Jersey City, and to bring him by force within the jurisdiction of the court, an attempt, hardly denied, by men calling themselves respectable, to employ the vilest elements of New York ruffianism in armed violation of the law. Again, other affidavits, of March 26th and 27th, had tried to identify movements, harmless in themselves, with operations in the stock-market, and had sought to fix upon him secret interviews with Mr. Osgood. None of these affidavits would have received an instant's thought from a respectable lawyer; and yet this evidence of spies had been openly placed upon the records of a court of justice. For these proceedings, the Drew counsel were confessedly responsible. That a judge should vindicate his dignity like a fish-woman, does not help the matter; the bar has its own load of infamy to carry. "There is a thing, Harry, which thou hast often heard of, and it is known to many in our land by the name of pitch; this pitch, as ancient writers do report, doth defile; so doth the company thou keepest."

There are other things, however, in these examinations, not referred to by Judge Barnard, even more calculated to excite surprise than the fact just commented upon. Can these admissions of witnesses, these innuendoes of counsel, really mean what they import? This machinery of referees referred to by Mr. Brady; this system of privileged counsel half admitted by Mr. Haskin; these flagrant grounds of impeachment broadly alleged, — can all these abuses of justice notoriously exist in any civilized commun

ity of the nineteenth century? Do judges now anywhere habitually demean themselves as we read that Jeffries demeaned himself two centuries ago? Can charges of crimes such as blackened the worst pages of judicial history in earlier days be now openly advanced against those who occupy the seats of supreme justice, and they neither demand investigation or slink disgraced from the bench? These are questions we cannot answer. The course of these examinations suggests grave doubts, - doubts only increased by the recollection of what we have elsewhere heard and read. The charges here alleged or implied are not new. All of them, whether referred to by Mr. Brady and Mr. Field, or admitted by Mr. Haskin or avoided by Mr. Belden, were openly recounted as practices. familiarly and notoriously common to the bench, in an article entitled "The Judiciary of New York City," published in the "North American Review" of July, 1867. The tone of that paper was able, calm, and judicious. The editor, while he knew that of which he spoke, spoke only a part of that which he knew. In one single portrait taken from that paper can be traced every thing, alleged or implied, in the paper under review. We neither know nor care to know who the justice thus depicted was. It is more than enough for us that the picture corroborates every thing, not that we have said, but that we have gathered from the reports.

"The condition to which the highest courts of the city have been reduced can, however, best be realized from a single portrait, undoubtedly that of one of the worst judges on the bench . . . but a fair example of what all must soon be, if the present system is continued.

"This man was nominated for the bench against the advice of all the judges, and elected without the support of a dozen respectable lawyers of any party. His knowledge of law from books is confessedly small; but he has a keen perception, and can take in a case with remarkable quickness; so that if a cause is well argued before him, and he listens attentively, without having any bias or prejudice, he can render a decision on the spot with perhaps as much chance of being right as any other judge in the city. This is a great merit; but, unfortunately, this is all his merit, and the number of 'ifs' is large and fearfully important. If he does not decide at once, he will take the papers to his office, and probably never open them until he has forgotten all that was said; and no judge is less fitted to decide upon the strength of his own mere study than he. Besides, there is no security against his hearing another argument after he leaves the court, and the last word is likely to leave the most impression upon

him. He is, moreover, very impatient of and inattentive to a long argument, no matter how necessary. . . . Frequently, the judge cuts short an argument by deciding against a party before he has fairly stated his case. On such occasions he is apt to say blandly to a lawyer, who persists in talking, 'You can go on all day, if you like, counsellor; but I have decided this case, and I never take back a decision.' Of course, he despatches business more promptly than any other judge; and, of course, he decides the same questions more diversely than any other two judges could manage to do. Accordingly, his associates pay small respect to his decisions. Not long ago, one of his oral opinions being cited as an authority before Judge —, that learned official fixed his gaze upon the advocate, and inquired, with an air of mild surprise, 'Do you mean to cite Judge's decisions as law?' Whereat the whole bar indulged in a suppressed laugh.

"To dignity the judge does not make the slightest pretension. It is his delight to raise a laugh by some coarse practical joke, and to brave public opinion by open improprieties. Thus, being offended by some criticism which appeared in the Evening Post,' he said in open court, that 'William Cullen Bryant was the most notorious liar in the United States.' On another occasion, a paper having published a simple report of his behavior in court, the next day, in the crowded court-room, he took notice of what he called this attack upon him, in language too indecent for repetition. A motion being made before him, in 1864, on behalf of one H-, he listened negligently until it was stated that Mr. H— had been imprisoned by order of the War Department on a charge of fraud; whereupon the judge literally shouted, What! was he put in jail by those villains down there?' - meaning the President and Secretary of War. Receiving an affirmative answer, he immediately granted the motion. . . .

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"The reference business had begun to assume dangerous proportions before this judge took his seat; but it was reserved for him to give it the form of a science. In his own office there were gentlemen whom he deemed to have qualifications for this duty, superior to all the rest of the bar. He always granted a motion for reference, and always sent the case, if it was worth' enough, to one of these gentlemen. Remonstrance was vain; even the agreement of all the parties upon other names did not help the matter. The only limitations to this practice were such as were imposed by the jealousy of the other judges, and by repeated amendments of the law, aimed directly at this system. The other judges he sometimes defied, and sometimes conciliated by giving a share of the references to their relatives and friends. The law he evaded by various shifts, but chiefly by making lawyers understand that it was dangerous to object to his nominations.

"It may easily be supposed that he not only had his standing referees, but also a definite list of receivers, when such officers were needed. The

nature of his interest in these appointments has long been the subject of speculation among members of the bar, but only a few are acquainted with facts sufficient to enable them to form a definite conclusion.

"Some years ago, one of the foremost lawyers in New York, an eminent member, too, of the party by which all the judges are elected, declared publicly that, in order to secure success before certain judges, it was necessary to employ certain lawyers having influence with them. Such, indeed, is a well-known fact, especially with regard to this judge, to whom the circumstances mentioned by the lawyer we have quoted, clearly showed that he referred. Not long ago, certain parties having an important affair in litigation were privately notified that, if they wished to succeed before the judge, they must employ two lawyers (neither of them having the slightest claim to the business), at a handsome fee.

"The partiality of this judge for a certain politician, whose name is synonymous with corruption and treachery, has been manifested by some extraordinary decisions. Several persons who were injured in riots, instigated by this man, sued him for damages. His counsel, fertile in excuses, delayed the trials for many months; and, finally, when the causes came on for trial before a judge from the interior of the State, and all excuses were worn out, the defendant and his counsel deliberately absented themselves from court without any excuse at all. Verdicts were taken against him; and he moved before this judge, of whom we speak, to open his default. Although it clearly appeared that the defendant had purposely allowed his default to be taken, the judge relieved him from it, and ordered costs to be paid to him by the plaintiffs! This was too much for his associates, who, though they held themselves unable to reverse his order, called his attention to the matter of costs, when he stated that this part of the order was a mistake! ...

"The facts which we have thus far stated, bad as they are, are not, however, so bad as others, concerning which our information is direct and explicit, and which, if it appears to be necessary to convince the public of the necessity of a complete transformation of the judiciary, we shall disclose on a future occasion. We are not actuated by hostility to a man, but to the system which produces such a man.

...

"Having owed his defeat in the last public episode of this man's life, in which he schemed long and skilfully for an important judicial appointment, in part to the persistent opposition of his associates on the bench,' he gave an open manifestation of his spite in a characteristic manner. A lawyer came into chambers while the judge was sitting there, and asked whether a certain other judge was in the inner room, or had been down that day. Judge tartly replied, 'I don't know any thing about him. I don't know any thing about any of them. There is a certain class of men I don't want to know any thing about.

When they come up for an

election, then I mean to know something about them.' A little later in the day he informed the bar that he had the most unmitigated contempt' for all his associate justices, feeling himself their superior, morally, socially, and financially.'"

This portion of the article we have quoted from closes with a remark that" About two years ago an investigation into various matters connected with the New York Ring' was attempted by the legislature; and it was wonderful to notice how many well-informed parties were detained out of the State by sickness, as long as the committee remained in session. The season might be unhealthy again, if a new investigation were commenced." Could these words have in any way foreshadowed sad disorders to those nameless informants of Mr. Belden, who had led him into so serious and groundless an aspersion upon Judge Barnard's official purity? Could they, too, have temporarily sought other and more genial climes? This probably will never be known. Of course, however, his honor's character was sufficiently vindicated by his own statement, without tracing the vile calumny to its source.

the

It is, however, necessary to resume that narrative from which this paper has been led away. Little more remains to be said. As a matter before the courts, these proceedings had now become decidedly notorious. Judges-even New York judges, the elective judges of New York City-had become shy of them. When Bloodgood v. Erie Co. came up before Judge Cardozo, on assignment upon the 23d of March, that judge very distinctly said that he had no desire to be mixed up in the Erie cases; and, accordingly, he postponed the hearing to the 30th of the month, and, when that day came, he postponed it again. When, upon 15th of April, in the examination before "Judge" Haskin, in the contempt cases, a point was raised as to the power of the referee to compel answers from witnesses, it was agreed, by general consent, to refer it to Judge Cardozo. That magistrate, however, utterly declined to have any thing to do with the matter, declaring that it had not come regularly before him. Mr. Clark and Mr. Fullarton both set ingenious snares to entrap his honor into an opinion, declaring that all the parties were willing to submit the point to him; to which the judge simply replied, "I prefer they should not be willing." Mr. Haskin, the referee, himself then tried, beginning, "Does your honor decide-?" but was saved the trouble of going further by the immediate rejoinder from