John K.'. Porter. the other side, but did not take part in the argument in the Court of Appeals, having in the mean time been elevated to the Bench of the Supreme Court of the State. He is a man, as all who know him will agree, of very clear, positive, and conscientious opin ions. After Judge Barrett had read the opinion of Judge Porter overruling the views for which he had as counsel con tended, he met me and said that he had never felt more assured of being right in any case, but that for the first time in his life he had been completely convinced of error, by Judge Porter's masterly treatment of the case. The mention of Judge Barrett's name recalls an amusing witticism by him several years later, after Judge Porter had been for some time at the bar in New York, often appearing before Judge Barrett. He declared it to be his opinion that Porter "was capable of trying to draw tears from a Master in Chancery on a partnership ac counting." The practical character of Porter's advice to clients may be seen from that which he once gave to Governor Fenton, who was for many years an object of attentions from the press which he doubtless thought to be un deserved, and knew to be unpleasant. He consulted Porter as to a particularly offensive personal attack. Porter deeply sympathized with him; declared it a public duty to punish such abuses of the freedom of the press; said that a line must be drawn at which forbear ance should cease; and, that line being fixed and overpassed, gave it as his opinion that the sufferer had but one course left to pur sue, — which was "to pretend as hard as possible not to have seen the articles Judge Porter defended a good many libel suits, but I doubt if he ever advised any one to seek redress at law for that kind of injury. Our partnership went into effect in 1868, Judge Porter having resigned late in 1867; and was composed of John K. Porter, George Wales Soren, Charles Francis Stone, and myself.
439
Porter was immediately on his arrival in New York in receipt of retainers in the very important Erie litigations and other impor tant suits then pending. From the first week of his life in New York, his professional em ployment was constant, and sometimes more engrossing than was reasonable either to client or counsel. I remember the dismay with which he came to me one morning, ex hibiting his diary for the day, which con tained seven or eight peremptory engage ments in different courts for the same hour. I was able to comfort him by leaves from my own experience; and as it happened, no one of the cases set down peremptorily for that day came on for many days afterwards. After that, whenever Judge Porter found his services positively promised in more than five cases at one time, it was his habit to consider himself free to go a-fishing all that day. He was especially sought after in cases of importance or difficulty, whether they were jury cases or at the bar of the court. To enumerate the important litigations in which during the next fifteen years he took an im portant and often controlling part, much less to outline that part, would be impracticable in any space less than a volume. An epi demic of railway litigation broke out about that time, as the more or less direct result of new ways of stealing railroads which had been found out by ingenious and energetic new op erators. These new ways of stealing naturally led to new forms of litigation about the thing stolen and the manner of the theft, — or what might be called the etiquette of the new art. I have said above that Judge Porter always believed his clients to be right. It was a nat ural emotion which resulted in a natural con viction. This trait was sometimes put to severe tests in those days. He was em ployed for the parties then in the manage ment of the Erie Railway Company, who found it convenient about that time to mi grate to Jersey City, a step which they after wards realized (when they came to know the capacity of certain members of the bench to
