of his associates in all his judicial work : "In consultation, while engaged in the labor of considering and deciding causes, the de portment of the chief justice toward his as sociates was uniformly kind, respectful and courteous. No irritating word, no offensive language, fell from his lips while thus em ployed. He often made up his mind quickly how a cause should be ruled, but he was not impatient of hesitation or opposition on the part of others. On the contrary, he listened with attention to whatever anyone had to say adverse to his views, and often readily came to their conclusion when it seemed supported by the better reason or authority. Indeed, I can say for myself, and I trust also for my associates, that I never expect or de sire to be treated in consultation with more consideration and respect than was shown me by the chief justice while engaged in the work of examining and deciding causes in the consultation room." This one infirmity of temper was the only one to mar a character otherwise so admira ble. He was the soul of honor, and he hated all unprofessional conduct. He came to the bench in the ripeness of years and experience, laden with profound knowledge, and with an ambition to make his work there the crowning glory of his professional life. Sopn after taking his place upon the bench, the memorable "Granger cases" came on for argument. Of these, mention has been made in the sketch of Chief-Justice Dixon, in an earlier part of these memoirs. The cases were of great importance, vitally so to railway corporations, and great public interest was aroused. After an able array of eminent counsel had illumined the subject by exhaustive argument, the newly installed chief justice gave his first opinion, reported in the Attorney General v. The Railway Companies (35 Wisconsin, 425). It is but to echo the general expression to say that this is a remarkably able opinion, settling the power of the State to control the cor porations of its creation, and to regulate the
tolls of railway companies for carrier ser vice. It was the forerunner of like decisions in the Supreme Court of the United States. He had much of the positive conservatism of a gentleman of the old school and of the old country. He had a contempt for strongminded women of the notoriety-seeking class. In a popular lecture which he gave while at the bar, on " Mrs. Jcllyby," he drained dry the vials of quaint sarcasm on the women who neglect home life to play a public role. He stoutly opposed the admis sion of women to the bar. In a legal opin ion given In re Goodell (39 Wisconsin, 232), he thus states his views: "This is the first application for admission of a female to the bar of this court, and it is just matter for congratulation that it is made in favor of a lady whose character raises no personal ob jection; something perhaps not always to be looked for in women who forsake the ways of their sex for the ways of ours. . . . There are many employments in life not un fit for female character. The profession of the law is surely not one of these. The pe culiar qualities of womanhood, its gentle graces, its quick sensibility, its tender sus ceptibility, its purity, its delicacy, its emo tional impulses, its subordination of hard reason to sympathetic feeling, are surely not qualified for forensic strife. Nature has tem pered woman as little for the juridical con flicts of the court-room as for the physical conflicts of the battle-field. Womanhood is moulded for gentler and better things. And it is not the saints of the world who chiefly give employment to our profession. It has essentially and habitually to do with all that is selfish and malicious, knavish and crimi nal, coarse and brutal, repulsive and obscene in human life. It would be revolting to all female sense of the innocence and sanctity of their sex, shocking to man's reverence for womanhood and faith in woman, on which hinge all the better affections and humani ties of life, that women should be permitted to mix professionally in all the nastiness of
