it having been contended either that the stone was thrown or that its victim was struck on the Chester County side of the line. The plea was overruled. At that time the new provisions of the Criminal Code of March 31, 1860, providing for the trial of offences committed near the boundaries of counties, had not yet been adopted. In the report on the Penal Code, the new 48th and 49th sections (which provide that trial may be had in either county for offences occurring within five hundred yards of the inter-county boundary line, P. L. 1860, p. 427) are recommended as "of real practical value" "to obviate the difficulty of proof" which occurs when it is doubtful in which county the offence has been actually perpetrated.

The case came on for trial January 19, 1860, but Mr. Stevens did not take the leading part, a circumstance which was due in some measure to the fact that he was liable to be called away from the trial to his Congressional duties in Washington. It was also ascribed to the reason that he was not accustomed to play the secondary part, even when so distinguished a criminal lawyer as David Paul Brown was his colleague. Mr. Brown, it will be remembered, was almost a fop in dress and manner, and his rotund and pictorial oratory was of a kind with which Mr. Stevens had little sympathy. It is related that during the trial he manifested a certain restiveness not common to him. The number of witnesses in attendance on the case was unusually large. They were divided into rival bands of rank and rabid partisans, who gave noisy vent to their sympathies and met in nightly brawls at public places in the city. The trial lasted Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Mr. Hiester opened for the Commonwealth, but before he had entirely closed his argument, Mr. Stevens was granted leave to address the jury on behalf of the defense, as he was obliged to leave for Washington, his "pair" with an opposition member of the House expiring that day. He deplored the rancor which had characterized the prosecution, defined the different

grades of murder under the law, expressed regret that the prosecution was pressing for conviction of the higher grade, and urged that his client was at most guilty only of involuntary manslaughter. On Sunday the jury attended the Presbyterian Church in the morning, St. James Episcopal Church in the afternoon, and heard a temperance service at the Moravian Church in the evening. Mr. Hiester concluded for the Commonwealth on Monday; the local newspaper reports that when he was followed by David Paul Brown, for the defense, who spoke nearly all afternoon, Brown's remarks "were listened to in deep silence and with such intense interest that although the bar was surrounded with an audience standing seven or eight deep, and the hall crowded to the door, it appeared like a collection of human statues." Col. Fordney occupied the evening session with an address that lasted from half after seven until past ten o'clock. After being out two hours, the jury returned with a verdict of "not guilty," and such a scene of disorder ensued as the Lancaster County court house has probably never witnessed before or since. The newspaper reports that "for a time a stranger might have supposed himself in the hall of the House of Representatives at Washington or in a court house where Sickles was tried and acquitted." The court crier stamped his foot and demanded silence, informing the crowd that they were "neither in a playhouse nor at a horse race." The street scenes until daylight were even more uproarious and disorderly, McFillen's friends engaging in a prolonged demonstration, cheering the defendant's counsel and the jury, and groaning for the prosecution. Mr. Stevens, however, was not at home to see or hear the popular "vindication" of his last client in the Criminal Courts.

Years later he rendered a last service to the members of his profession by writing his own will, to which circumstance may be due in some part the fact that the contract for the orphans' home he founded was let only last month. The rapidly succeeding events of the war and his rise to leader

ship of his party, through parliamentary control of the popular branch of Congress, took him forever from the Bar and ended his career as a practising lawyer-with which only I have to do now.

Otherwise it would be interesting, and, perhaps, valuable to follow him into the wide arena of national power and politics, to weigh his policies and principles, to measure his attitude toward great questions of government and constitutional law, of finance, of emancipation and confiscation, of reconstruction, executive impeachment and of territorial extension, to discriminate how closely he adhered to or how far he departed from the law as he viewed it, and to determine whether or not, as a statement, he was inspired by mean or noble, selfish or patriotic motives, whether he was a violent, malignant, headstrong destructionist, or an ardent lover of human liberty, whose hope for and faith in Republican institutions made him see with clear vision and hold with tenacious clutch to the higher law of a nation's supreme necessity-by which alone she can be saved for the destiny whither her people are taking her and for which she was outfitted by the God of all nations.

(For valuable suggestions and interesting reminiscences embodied in the above sketch, I acknowledge my indebtedness to Col. A. K. McClure, Hon. Wm. McLean, of Gettysburg; Hon. H. M. North, LL.D., and Samuel Evans, Esq., of Columbia; Hon. J. Hay Brown and Hon. John Stewart, of the Supreme Court; Hon. C. B. Penrose, of Philadelphia; Simon P. Eby, Esq., of Lancaster; S. A. Williams, Esq., of Bel Air, Md., and to the biographies of Stevens thus far published, including those of McCall, Callender, Hood and Harris.) W. U. H.

A PHILADELPHIA LAWYER IN THE

LONDON COURTS

Paper read before the Pennsylvania Bar Association,
June 27, 1906

By THOMAS LEAMING, Esq., of Philadelphia

(The illustrations are reproduced from original paintings by the author.)

Actors on a holiday go to the theatre. The London bus driver, when he gets a day off, will pay his fare to see another fellow drive. So, an American lawyer on his holiday abroad is apt to gravitate to the London Law Courts and will there be tempted to investigate the almost unknown life of his English brethren.

Professional life in England is highly specialized and governed by many peculiar customs and an elaborate etiquette. An outsider can hardly hope to master the subject. He can only record his observations.

THE LAW COURTS BUILDINGS

Leaving the busy Strand at Temple Bar and entering the Law Courts Building, one plunges into that vast establishment where the disputes of millions of British subjects. are settled by law; for here the whole Kingdom begins and ends its legal battles-except some cases on circuit and those minor matters which go to the County Courts or the very few which reach the House of Lords.

The visitor, strolling through the lofty gothic hall and ascending one of the staircases, finds himself in a long vaulted corridor-sombre and quiet-which runs around the building. There are no idle crowds and no smoking, but,