USA > New York > Erie County > Buffalo > Memorial of the city and county hall opening ceremonies, Buffalo, N.Y. > Part 10
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SUBJECT-MATTER OF DINNER PARTIES.
To be invited to sit at the board of John Ganson was indeed an honor. We had misgivings as to how we should go there, and how we should comport ourselves when there, but we resolved to go, and we went. I well remember the preparations that I made to go to that party. It was the first dinner party that I had ever been in- vited to attend. I was comparatively without the pale of society, and consequently without a dress coat. And, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the Bar, I studied up on the subject of dinner parties for the occasion. I read somewhere that a pair of lavender pants was the thing to wear at a dinner party, and I forthwith ordered a pair of lavender pants. I also ascertained that a dress coat was the only thing that could be tolerated in such a mansion as John Gan- son's, and therefore a dress coat was ordered. But a vest suitable
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for such an occasion defied research, and was something that occasioned me more anxiety and trouble than all the rest of my outfit. I finally ordered a very low white vest, and a pair of patent leather shoes, and thus arrayed I went, feeling as Solomon did in all his glory. I was escorted to the dinner by my friend, Mr. Lyman K. Bass. I can well remember the expression of John Ganson's face, and the merry twinkle of his eye, as he took in at a glance my whole make-up. But there wasno embarrassment there. We had a noble host, and a most noble hostess. Everyone was made to feel at home, which, let me add, was the very height of enter- tainment. We had an enjoyable dinner, and we went forth from the mansion of John Ganson with a little old sherry in our heads, peace and good will towards all men in our hearts, and especially toward John Ganson, and thought what a glorious thing it was, after all,
TO BE A LAWYER.
I think that is the only occasion, it is indeed the only occasion that I have been able to find, when any portion of the Bar of Erie County have met together in social intercourse.
Concerning the erection of the new Court House, and leave-taking of the old one, I have few words to say. A great many tears have been shed by the older members of the profession upon leaving the venerable pile of bricks across the way. We have no such tears to shed. . We have no endearing recollections of that faded pile of bricks. No thronging memories choke our utterances when we speak of that old Court House, but we do remember that on some occasions we have had our utterances choked inside of those old walls, when we have been endeavoring to convince a court or jury that we were right and everybody else wrong, in the struggle up the rugged hill of our profession. It has been the scene not only of the struggles, but the triumphs of the older members of the profession, who now are basking in the sunshine of professional eminence earned within its walls. Well may they mourn as they turn away from the venerable structure.
Mr. Chairman, we consider that this new Court House has been given to us by the older members of the profession; it has been built for our occupancy in years to come, when the great gath- erer shall have taken to himself a great many of the old members of the profession who are present at this dinner. We appreciate your kindness to us, and the tender solicitude that you exhibit for the wellfare and comfort of the younger members of the profession, but above all other things we congratulate you that you have
STAVED OFF THE DAY OF PAYMENT
for this beautiful and noble structure, until such time in the dim vista of the future, when an increase of clientage and a lucrative practice, will enable us to pay for the same easily and with pleasure.
Mr. Chairman, we appreciate the responsibility that rests upon us. We must maintain the honor, the dignity, and the character of
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the profession in the future, as it has been sustained in the past. We have received a noble inheritance from the illustrious dead, and we have the living example of the older members of the profession to instruct us in the manner in which we shall practice law in order to merit that respect and confidence of the community which has been so generously bestowed upon them. With these precedents we cannot fail, if we do but follow them.
And now, in conclusion, my friends, the younger members of the profession, pledge that we will maintain the honor and the dignity of the profession of the Erie County Bar.
LETTERS AND TELEGRAMS.
The Chairman announced the receipt of several letters and tele- grams of a congratulatory character. The first one presented was from
SENATOR SHERMAN S. ROGERS.
BUFFALO, March 13, 1876.
Gentlemen : It is with very great regret that I am compelled to say that I cannot be present at the Bar banquet to-morrow evening. It will undoubtedly be an occasion of such genuine good feeling, and of such hearty festivity, that it will be remembered many years by the fortunate participants.
I beg to offer the following sentiment and to call on my friend Putnam to respond to it, at the same time desiring that it be distinctly understood that the toast includes none of us boys.
Yours respectfully, SHERMAN S. ROGERS.
The sentiment of Mr. Rogers was-"The Gray-Heads of the Bar," and Mr. James O. Putnam being called upon by the Chair- man said :
ADDRESS OF HON. JAMES O. PUTNAM.
I thank you, Mr. Chairman, and the other members of the com- mittee for the grace which has afforded me the pleasure of this hour. I have been so long withdrawn from the active duties of the pro- fession, that your thoughtfulness is doubly kind. You say truly that my early retirement was not a voluntary one, and if I had the strength for its labors, I should regard no future so happy as that which should recall me to its activities.
This is the Centennial year, and I suppose my friend Rogers deemed it necessary to call upon a gentleman of the
REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD
to respond to this gray-haired toast. Well, sir, I realize, as I look around this table of two hundred guests, and recognize not a half- score who were in the profession when I entered it, that I belong to a past generation. Nearly all the men who thirty years ago gave
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renown to the Buffalo Bar are dead. And what a splendid galaxy of names now come thronging to memory! Tracy, Love, Potter, Fillmore, Hall, Haven, Barker, Sill, Smith, Mullett, Sherwood, Tillinghast, Sawin, Verplanck, Masten, Stow, Austin, Cook, Hoyt, and of a still younger generation, Greene, Norton, Welch. These are but a part of the many names which have made illustrious the Buffalo Bar.
I know it is of the living you expect me to speak, but I am sure you will pardon this brief reference to a past sacred to us all.
As I look around on this assembly my eye rests upon a venerable form full of years and of honor, whose presence among us imparts the highest interest to this occasion.
THE REV. DR. LORD
began his career in Buffalo, as a lawyer, nearly half a century ago But while in the yigor of young manhood, and in the full tide of professional success, he consecrated his splendid genius, his rare talent, his varied learning, indeed all the wealth of his nature, to another profession akin to ours, yet of more exalted dignity. I say akin to ours, for if religion descended from God to men, or if it sprang from that moral consciousness which is a spark struck out of the divinity, is it not true that Law, as good old Hooker declared, " hath its seat in the bosom of God, and its voice is the harmony of the world ?" I rejoice in his honored presence among us to-night. It is one of the delightful recollections of my life that it was my pleasure for many years to have intimate relations with him, and that nothing has ever lessened the mutual feeling of kindness which has been, and still is, precious to me.
I see present another representative of the advanced generation, who very appropriately led the commemorative services of the Bar on Saturday. A man who might easily be taken for a Roman Sen- ator in the best days of Rome, when none were for a party, and all were for the State. It was my privilege to be associated with Mr. Babcock when in 1842 I began my professional life in Buffalo.
May the time be a long way in the future before can be fully ut- tered our appreciation of that constellation of qualities of head and heart which have made the ripe lawyer, the pure and able statesman, the man without guile, and the friend that sticketh closer than a brother.
By my side sits another representative of the earlier time. A man who has added personal renown to ancestral honor-Judge Clinton. He is our universal educator. Not to speak of his eminent profes- sional career, he has taught us the sweet humanities and that unbought grace of life, which are the highest and purest social charm.
NATURE'S OWN CHILD,
he has unfolded to us her mysteries as she has revealed them to him from tree, and shrub and flower, and her myriad schools of life;
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for to him Nature unveils her face, and fills his ear with her music, and his soul with her all-pervading beauty. I never think of our ven- erable friend, and realize the part he is of all we most value among us, that I do not fervently utter the Horatian prayer for Augustus:
Serus in colum redeas, diuque Laetus intersis in populo Buffalonis.
Let me ask here if it be not about time that Buffalo remembered her indebtedness to the father of our friend ? It was his sagacity and energy that transformed the frontier village into the city which now sits in conscious strength at the feet of these seas. I know Buffalo is De Witt Clinton's monument, but we owe it to ourselves to erect a commemorative work of art to the statesman who saw our possibilities and enabled us to realize them.
I see here my brother Greene who, when I came to Buffalo, had been for two or three years at the Bar. He was my first friend on the most important occasion of my mature life. And when I re- member that he was then living in the melancholy condition of a bachelor, and now see around this table his sons who have already won distinction and honor in their father's profession, I realize that my own shadow lengthens and my day declines.
THE HON. E. G. SPAULDING,
who sits at your left, Mr. Chairman, comes under the head of my friend Rogers' toast. He read his profession with my father, and more than forty years ago brought here his learning and his energy to lay the basis and build the superstructure of his distinguished career.
The " gray head" of Mr. T. J. Sizer reveals another of the early men, and recalls our obligation to him for his public and instruc- tive discussion of almost every subject of general local interest.
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Near Mr. Sizer I see a "Silver Gray" of the revolutionary epoch ; a man without whose life this occasion might never have been. He is the incarnation of that "Aurora" which has so long and so re- splendently shone upon our fair city.
After making the fortune of many another man, he has in his last days set out to make the fortune of Buffalo.
Who created our new park ? We shake our gory locks at Dennis Bowen, and say, " thou did'st it!" Who urged and supervised the construction of our new City and County Hall which has so opened the flood gates of Buffalo eloquence, and turned the whole city into daily and nightly pilgrimages to this new temple ? Who with his own hand let loose from their marble prison those four interesting females who stand perpetual sentinels at the clock tower, hence- forth, I suppose, the guardian divinities of the city ? If any one man is either to be hung or canonized for all this, Dennis Bowen cannot hope to escape.
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Mr. O. H. Marshall, whose useful studies and trusts so constantly associate him with Buffalo institutions, is of the few remaining lawyers of the earlier times.
Judge Smith, whose successful professional career has had its natural and fitting close by his transfer to the Judiciary, and Judge Talcott with the same experience, and Mr. Ford, whom I do not see, and whose ill health I fear has deprived us all of a pleasure, and our brother Stevens who, I presume, is absent rebuking Noah for the introduction of slavery into the United States, almost, if not quite, complete the list.
And here I am sure I may be pardoned a word of reference to one who was long a leader of the Bar, but whom considerations of health have transferred to another State. Henry W. Rogers is still too intimately connected with our institutions of art and charity, and still dwells in too many Buffalo hearts to be regarded as not of us. We rejoice that his closing years are happy, and that he has not forgotten his Buffalo love.
You warned me, Mr. Chairman, off the ground of your decade. I see a goodly number of friends who are rapidly moving
UP TO THE THREE SCORE LINE,
men who are now doing the hard work of the profession and reaping its honors and rewards. And I see around me a little army of young men whose future is all before them, bright to their teeming fancies as a lover's dream.
It would be easy to be sentimental here, but I obey your warning, and close by returning my thanks for the kindness which has per- mitted me to bid you-" Hail!"
OLD BACHELOR LAWYERS.
In calling upon the next speaker, the Chairman said that the true philosophy of language is to go from the gay to the solemn and severe. We have heard this evening, the good things that have dropped from the lips of the honorable judge, and now I want to call your attention to the doings of our brother Clark. I mean, Delavan F. Clark. He has taken a new departure, although late in life, but still it is better to do a good thing late than not at all. I think brother Clark gave his bachelor brother members a pretty sly slip when he left their ranks and joined ours. I believe that there is but one man left of his class, and he stands now, very much like a hard-hearted oak in the midst of a very large stock of maples. I wish to know from him, from my brother Cutting, what sort of an opinion he has of the practice of the law. And I would like to
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know something about his affections. It seems to me, if he would explain himself, we might offer him some timely consolation.
· SPEECH OF HON. HARMON S. CUTTING.
Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen : Under the most favorable circum- stances it would be no easy task to vindicate, before an assemblage like this, the forlorn brotherhood of bachelors. As it is, the wine, for the moment, has vanished from before me; my glass is empty and my throat is as arid as are supposed to be the hearts of the fra- ternity which I am called on to represent. Doubly difficult, then, is the discharge of the duty which you, Mr. Chairman, have so un- feelingly imposed upon me. In the suddenness of the shock con- tained in your request, I can make but a lame attempt to defend what is generally regarded as so bad a cause. Indeed, I shall not essay it at all, but will seek to escape from a difficult position by alluding to the deserter whose name you have mentioned, and by calling to your contemplation that still marching procession, mar- shaled and commanded by this deserter who, up to the very moment of his treason, had seemed to be loyal to our cause. He is gone ! He has "squared" his accounts for the loss of a decade, and from the bud of unsophisticated celibacy has suddenly and unexpectedly blossomed into a full-flowered " Benedick."
You, the younger members of the Bar, may read in this startling occurrence such a lesson as the state of your affections shall happen to suggest. As for me, it has added to my importance by bringing me one step nearer to the honors of solitary survivorship ; one step nearer to being the officer, standard-bearer and all the rank and file of that great company who, one by one, have disappeared amidst showers of orange flowers and the flutter of white veils. I chal- lenge your congratulations or condolences, whichever you please, for having so stoutly maintained a position that has given me a sort of paramount right to address you on so momentous a topic.
EXAMPLES IN MATRIMONIAL AFFAIRS
are of small consequence. But however you might be affected by such things, I must disclaim all responsibility for any possible effect of my conduct as a precedent. Let me explain.
A gentleman not remarkable for his uniform devotion to the principles of Father Mathew, was upbraided by a friend for his folly, and especially for setting so evil an example to the generation which was coming after him. He promptly repelled this imputation of evil and insisted that the value and propriety of his conduct was not understood. Said he : "I seek not to teach by so trite a thing as an example. You must not regard me in that light at all. I am a WARNING! I show what is to be avoided, not what is to be embraced."
Young gentlemen, you see how unnecessary I am, whether for good or ill, as an example, and particularly as an example of what
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is to be embraced. If there is anything in this much maligned bachelorism to be shunned ; if half of a pair of scissors is better than a blade however well-tempered; if husbands only are for heaven, then regard me as a warning and not as an example-a warn- ing of what it might be well for you to avoid; a startling image who with figuratively stretched forefinger points away from the solitary paths which he has trodden.
But I give no cognovit. I make no confession
TO THE YOUNGER BACHELORS
about me-I mean those not already mortgaged to some fair lady- their condition, I venture to say, is not wholly unbearable; and even when older, it may not be one of unmitigated misery. What my own experience might show, I will not intimate. These wearers of swallow-tail coats and immaculate neck-ties are not those from among whom I shall select my confessor. When I think of this, I can't say that I am particularly proud of being a bachelor. Yet what can one do but make the best of it? In those comfortable old slippers, and with my cigar and book and cheerful fire, it is not so very bad after all. In my solitary apartment, I can pretend to be at home, and keep up the illusion of domesticity by the fre- quent contemplation of what a pater familias I might have been. And as for wooing; why, I can woo the Law. What an opportu- nity here for the gushing of romantic affection! What ringlets of parchment; what wreaths of red tape; what perfumes of an- tique mouldiness! But, seriously, though our noble profession may not present the attractions of a bevy of beauty, nor speak in the language of sentiment or song, it is worthy of our most earnest and unremitting devotion; and whether " Benedick " or bachelor, whether blessed or not blessed with a wife or a sweetheart, let us not fail in our affection for our mistress, the Law.
LETTER FROM JUDGE WALLACE.
The Chairman presented the following letter from Hon. Wm. J. Wallace, Judge of the U. S. Court, Northern District, N. Y .:
SYRACUSE, March 13, 1876.
Gentlemen : I regret exceedingly that my engagements preclude my accept- ance of your kind invitation to be present at the dinner of the Erie County Bar.
I hold it to be one of the paramount duties of every conscientious lawyer to partake of good dinners whenever he can. When dinners are given under the public auspices of the members of the Bar, the lawyer whose seat is vacant should be sent supperless to bed. These occasions, I have observed, are al- ways elevating in their tendencies, and certainly, esthetically considered, im- prove and educate the taste.
It is a matter for congratulation that these social reunions are becoming more frequent. They cement good-fellowship, soften the asperities of profes- sional intercourse, and promote that esprit du corps which is one of the charms and at the same time one of the inspirations of the legal profession.
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The pleasure I have derived from my official intercourse with the members of the Bar of Erie County enhances my disappointment at being unable to meet them socially to-morrow evening.
Very truly yours,
WM. J. WALLACE.
Mr. J. D. Husbands, of the Rochester Bar, was requested to speak to the letter of Judge Wallace. He said :
Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen : I came here to the Erie County Bar twenty years ago, sick, as the result of that affliction of the race, chronic rheumatism, but your winters sent me back to my old city-a city that I love on many accounts. I remember your vernal sweetness and your summer pleasures. Buffalo has but two seasons -summer and winter, and to come here is to go where you cannot have four seasons in the year.
I remember, sir, all those old members of the Bar, already referred to. The Buffalo Bar has been extremely fortunate in its
GREAT ANCESTORS.
Let me say to you that you must not rely upon your ancestors, for every young man must rely upon himself. Having practiced for some sixteen or eighteen years in this city, I can say with truth and equal pleasure, that I never saw a Bar that showed a greater measure of talent, or more dignity and respect for human rights, than I have seen here.
Gentlemen, we started sometime ago what we called Bar Parties; we thought them a signal success, and an old friend of mine, a member of the profession, was about to die but he knew it not, he wanted me by his side, and he said to me the last Sunday of his life : I have been thinking a good deal of the want of social life in the profession. We do not visit the families of our brethren of the Bar as we ought to do ; he said : As soon as I get well I will go and see the families of the members of the Bar. I wanted to sav to you, gentlemen, in the commencement of my remarks to the members of the Bar, I wanted to address you as ladies and gentle- men, because the presence of ladies is really here to-night; you cannot have such a meeting without seeing the influence of wife, of mother, of sister and of sweetheart.
Let this not be the last of your social meetings when you shall get into the new Court House. Go there with a new and nobler purpose, if you can; go there for a nobler future. Do not think that you have nothing to do for the better, but honor the profession that has been honored before you.
I remember that when in Massachusetts, a lawyer put his name in my hat for the purpose of taking it off; there is no such thing in the Buffalo Bar, or in the Erie County Bar, and there is not in the Rochester Bar either. In our city and its surrounding country we sometimes meet with the Buffalo Bar, and we are glad to meet with them, and to see the honest rivalry that exists between the two
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cities. Let there be no hostility between them. Let there be noth- ing but generous rivalry of honest hearts, worthily cultivating a purer and a nobler future.
LETTER FROM JUDGE NOAH DAVIS.
The Chairman then announced that he had a letter from Hon. Noah Davis, of the city of New York, formerly a member of this Bar, and who all the older members of the profession and of his age, remember with respect and kindness. Mr. Sprague then read the letter as follows:
NEW YORK, March 13, 1876.
HON. E. C. SPRAGUE, ASHER P. NICHOLS and others, Committee:
Gentlemen : I have just received your kind note of invitation to attend a dinner to be given by the Bar of Erie County, at Buffalo, on the 14th instant. I regret that my engagements at the General Term, now sitting, prevent my attendance. Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to be present on that occasion, to meet once more a body of gentlemen with whom I have in the past enjoyed for many years the most friendly professional and official relations. A long separation has in no degree impaired my respect for the Bar of Erie County. I recognize in that Bar many of the ablest and worthiest lawyers of the State.
After a somewhat larger and different experience in professional and judi- cial life, I recur with greater pleasure than ever to my long service on the bench of the Eighth District, and especially in the courts of Erie county, where the larger share of that service was rendered; and I speak in no dis- paragement of any other Bar when I say that in ability, courtesy, and in all kindly personal and social relations, I have found no Bar superior to yours.
I should be glad to greet in person every member of it, but as I cannot do that, I beg you will convey to them the feelings of warm regard which I shall never cease to bear. I am, very respectfully,
NOAH DAVIS.
Mr. Sprague said that all wanted to hear one of the oldest members of the profession in response to this letter, and no gentleman is better able to do justice to the occasion than my worthy friend, Hon. R. P. Marvin, of Chautauqua county.
ADDRESS OF JUDGE MARVIN.
Mr. Chairman : Though not a member of the Erie County Bar, I am a member of the profession. I claim to be a brother of the members of the Bar of Erie County; they are my brothers and I claim a recognition from them as they are brothers. I am here upon invitation as your honored guest, and my first acknowledg- ment should be to the chairman of the committee, and to the mem- bers of the Erie County Bar for the compliment and honor be- stowed upon me, in inviting me to be here this evening, as a guest. I thought at one time of putting pen to paper and excusing myself. But I said, no, I desire to go and meet the Bar of Erie County per- sonally, and to recognize among them the familiar faces which I have known for so many years.
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