opinion was great, but not obstinate; he was willing to be instructed, and if in error the nobility of his nature taught him how to ac knowledge his mistake and make all needed reparation. He was a close student, and supplemented by research and industry, added to his native vigor of mind, what he had lost by the lack of educational advan tages. His intellectual characteristics mani fested through his wholecareer were quickness of perception, alertness in grasping the main prominent features in a case, and a readiness of expression. Ideas seemed to come too rap idly, so rapidly sometimes as to obscure his mental vision and prevent a proper apprecia tion of the real issue; but his sober second thoughts, and his willingness to listen and yield to logic and argument, prevented him from making any great mistakes. A notable instance of this feature in his character was manifested in the proceedings connected with the trial of a man named Thomas Marsh indicted for murder. A building had been burned, and two human lives had been sacrificed. By the statute of New Jersey, this offence was a capital one. Marsh had been tried and convicted at a term of the Oyer and Terminer in Essex County, held by Justice Whitehead. During the trial his counsel became unmistakably insane. A motion was made for a new trial, and Judge Whitehead called to his aid Chief-Justice Hornblowcr, who heard the argument on the motion. He wrote an opinion denying the new trial; Judge Whitehead remonstrated, and presented such arguments to his chief that he was induced to reconsider his opin ion. The new trial was granted, and Marsh was acquitted. Chief-Justice Hornblovver settled the law in New Jersey in two most important par ticulars, — one, that relating to challenges of jurors, and the other, that which governed the defence of insanity. Eliphalet M. S. Spencer had been indicted for murder, and Chief-Justice Hornblower presided at the trial. He prepared in advance an opinion on the subject of challenges, and, as the
clerk was about to call the jury, announced this opinion. He decided that there could be no challenge to a juror because he had formed or expressed an opinion in the case before the trial, unless it appeared that the " opin ion expressed was out of ill will or malice to ward the party!' This opinion was approved by the full bench of the Supreme Court, after solemn argument. It is certainly contrary to the practice as it obtains to-day in many other States. If Chief-Justice Hornblower's law, as laid down by him in Spencer's case, gov erned judges elsewhere, the miserable spec tacle would not so often be witnessed, when days and sometimes weeks are spent in seek ing for an incompetent jury. In the same case he also declared two opinions, — one of which is settled law in New Jersey, and the other open to criticism. One was his definition of that kind of insanity which ought to prove a sufficient defence in in dictments for crime. He summed up his opinion on that point in these words in his charge to the jury: " If the evidence makes it clear to your minds, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the prisoner at the time was un conscious that he ought not to do it, he is to be acquitted; but if not, then he cannot be acquitted on the ground of insanity, whether he was partially insane or not." He utterly discarded the idea of moral insanity, and by his charge did not leave the prisoner a ghost of a chance for acquittal upon that ground. He was equally emphatic when he addressed the jury on the evidence which proved the intention of the defendant to commit mur der. He held that the prisoner was guilty of murder, if at any moment of time before the deed was committed he intended to take the life of a human being; that it was not even necessary that the act should be the result of a previous determination, but that it was murder in the first degree if at the very moment the knife was plunged in the heart of the victim, or the pistol fired, the intention was formed to take life He made many other very important decisions, set tling disputed principles, some of which
