Yale University Law School - Yale Law Reporter Yearbook (New Haven, CT)

Page 68 text:

THE YALE SIIINGLE. 6g who holds third place, and might have been higher, had his opinions been reduced about fifteen pages per mp. Kent, Story, Bentham, John Adams and Taney are voted for. Shining with undiminished brilliancy among these luminaries, the names of Hayden and Levy appear. ln the contest for place of greatest American jurist, Chief Justice Marshall recovers himself, and receives nearly three times as many votes as Kent, who is second by a margin of one vote over Cooley. Story and David Dudley Field come next, with seat- tering votes for Robt. AG. Ingersoll, Judge Callahan, WVilliam M. Evarts, Recorder Smyth and our own Adams. Justice Harlan is voted the greatest jurist now liv- ing, with Judge Cooley next. Our own class has the honor of containing the holder of third place in the contest, to wit, Adams, whose illustrious ancestor is mentioned above as receiving a vote fby an apprecia- tive descendantj, for the greatest jurist of all time. Those who wish to win Moot Court cases vote for Chief Justice Beers. Story, Marshall, Joseph Choate, Justices Gray and Field, as well as Hayden, have constituents in our class. As a result of our interest in certain recent criminal cases, in which Mr. Wm. C. Case so ably conducted the defense, we have voted him the ablest local law- yer. Prof. Baldwin comes second, and Judge Stod- dard and Mr. J. W. Alling tied for third. Messrs. Doolittle, Ingersoll, Buckland, VVatrous, Harrison and Hamilton are also in the race. Those of us who have made a specialty of Police Court cases, and have

Page 67 text:

62 'l'lIl'2 YALE SIIINGLIS. Loomis second. Profs. Beers, Townsend and Perry follow in that order. Some of the wags voted for Judge Fenn and Prof. Woolsey, While one fond youth, who had not evidently tried to evade paying the library fee, or been obliged to account for his conduct, voted for Dean Wayland. The instructor most difhcult to recite to was chosen with ease. The vote is too large to permit any doubt of the sincerity manifested. P1'of. Baldwin towers above all competitors. We have not forgotten the knotty problems concerning indorscment, partner- ship, legacies, powers in gross, etc., which appeared to us hopeless of solution and sent us in humiliation to our benches. When we were obliged to face the difhculties arising in connection with the powers of directors and constructive trusts, we envied those mild sensations which Prometheus, chained to the rock of Caucasus, felt in the region of his liver. Following the traditions of the law, we consider Blackstone to be the greatest jurist of the world. Our familiarity with his great Work has been chieliy derived from hearsay and the directions beneath the paragraphs of the Elementary Law to read 2 Bl. Comm. pp. 163-168, etc., and when we have exam- ined more closely his claims to greatness, perhaps our present opinion will be more strongly confirmed. Only one ballot less was east for Lord Coke. Prob- ably the first words of his that the most of us ever read were the eovin doth suffoeate the right, but we liked the appearanceiof his quaint, pithy state- ments and hence our admiration. Our patriotism showed itself in the vote for Chief Justice Marshall,

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64 'l'lII:I VALE SHINGLIS. seen Jakey defend with so much spirit hundreds of hopeless peace-breakers cf als., vote for him. Tyner and Hawkes receive votes. Being possessed of cheerful dispositions and good digestions, Qwith the exception of the melancholy Buckham and the hypochondriacal Hawkesj, we enjoyed immensely the jokes with which some mem- bers of the Faculty relieved the tedium of recitations and lectures. Of all the instructors, Judge Loomis, who will always be of tender memory with us, used this mode of arousing interest most frequently, and when Judge Story had found it impossible on account of the brevity of his treatment of the subject of Bail- ments to give us Pothier's opinions on some particular topic, fmanaging generally to quote Sir William Jones at length, and perhaps a half score or so lines of Roman lawj, the genial Judge supplied the deficiency by relating some anecdote from the large stock which he had gathered during the four or five decades of of his connection with law. All these jokes were thoroughly appreciated, and to read the answers to this question is to review the most pleasant part of the study of Bailments. ' Prof. 'I'ownsend's joke in connection with the fourth section of the Statute of Frauds is the favorite of the largest number, while Judge Loomis' remarks concerning the perplexity of a certain Judge. who was called on to decide who was the common carrier of a person of very immature age, elicited the loudest laugh from some. The unfortunate precaution of Judge Cooley in making so accessible to careful read- ers the story of the wrongful act of one in using a