Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 03.pdf/215

in the case of Johnson v. Turner, 95 Mo. 431, 441. The record in that case consisted of no less than fourteen thousand pages of written manuscript. It was an equity case which turned almost entirely on the facts, and involved a review of numerous and complicated transactions covering a period of twenty-five years, resting largely in parol. Both parties appealed from the judgment be low, and the mountain of transcript and briefs was enough to appall the stoutest heart Yet Judge Black read every line of it all, and presented a statement of the facts which contains not over fifteen hundred words, and in which neither party could point out an omission of a single salient fact.

Theodore Brace.

Judge Brace is a native of Alleghany County, Maryland, and was born June 10, 1835. He became a resident of Missouri in 1856. At the breaking out of the war he enlisted in the Confederate cavalry service, and by repeated promotions became a colonel. When the bar of the Drake Test Oath was removed, he resumed the practice of his profession. In 1874 he became a member of the State Senate, and gained a wide reputation as an orator of rare grace and eloquence. In 1879 he became probate judge of Monroe County; in 1881, a judge of the circuit court; and in 1887, a member of the Supreme Court. He has a ready command of language, and is particularly happy in presenting complicated chancery causes. In personal contact he is affable and genial. His abilities and traits can be fairly judged by the opinions delivered in Lewis v. Coates, 93 Mo. 170; Cahn v. Lehman, 93 Mo. 574; Dickson v. Kempinsky, 96 Mo. 252; Simmons v. Hill, 96 Mo. 679; Hargadine v. Henderson, 97 Mo. 375; Beck v. Mo. Pac. Ry. Co., 13 S. W. Rep. 1053.

Shepard Barclay.

The youngest member of the court was born in St. Louis, Nov. 3, 1847, and is a descendant of an old and prominent family of that city. He was thoroughly educated in the local public and high schools; was graduated at the St. Louis University in 1867, and at the Law Department of the University of Virginia in 1869. He spent two sessions at the University of Berlin in the study of the civil law, and incidentally acquired a good knowledge of foreign languages. He began the practice of his profession in 1872, and was exceedingly thorough in the preparation of his cases. Some of his more important and elaborate briefs are digested in 75 Mo. 319, 340, 485, and 71 Mo. 631.

In 1882 he was elected one of the circuit judges of the city of St. Louis, and in 1888 the bar of that city strongly urged his candidacy to the supreme bench. His opinions are generally concise and free from elaboration. In the very recent volumes the following evidence his characteristics: Sanders v. Anchor Line, 97 Mo. 26; Henry v. Evans, 97 Mo. 47; State v. Hope, 100 Mo. 347.