VOL. V.
No. 3.
BOSTON.
MARCH, 1893.
THE LATE MR. BARON HUDDLESTON. MR. BARON HUDDLESTON, who died last year, was at once the best liked and the most grossly underrated judge upon the English Bench. It fell to his lot to try a large number of cases upon the merits of which public opinion was acutely divided, and a certain section of the English press systematically held him up before its readers as a partial, pretentious, and incom petent man. This view has no correspond ence with the facts, and was at variance with the settled judgment of the legal profession. Even a superficial study of the career and character of this " old man eloquent will suffice to clear away from his judicial mem ory the undeserved and absurd reproaches with which it has been loaded, and the dust and heat of which can hardly have failed to prejudice his reputation in America. John Walter Huddleston was an Irishman by birth. His father served his generation in the Royal Navy. Huddleston had no academic name, and his biographer is not therefore called upon to count over a long and wearisome bead-roll of prizes and honors which too often serve first as objects of exclusive worship to their unreasoning de votees, and then as garlands wherewith to deck a shattered constitution and an en feebled brain. In due time Mr. Huddle ston took to the law and became a member of the Honorable Society of Gray's Inn, which still attracts by its accessible scholar ships, its excellent cuisine, and its part in the glories of Bacon, Holt, and Romilly, a considerable number of students. He was called to the bar in 1839, and joined the Oxford Circuit. The following story, for the truth of which we are unable to vouch, 14
still passes current at the Circuit mess. An important case was proceeding, in which one of the witnesses was a Frenchman. The of ficial interpreter was nowhere to be found, anil neither his " Ludship " nor the examining counsel had a sufficient knowledge of the Gallic tongue to take his place. Mr. Hud dleston volunteered his services, displayed an accurate acquaintance with the French lan guage, was praised by the judge, and as a necessary consequence was at once courted by the attorneys. No such explanation of Mr. Baron Huddleston's phenomenal success is required. Nature had given him a fine, honest face, a singularly charming manner, and a vigor ous and acute mind; the rest he did for himself. Too many men come to London, without either connection or means, take no pains to form a • circle of acquaintances, join the bar, and then sink into despair, be cause the work which they have never cul tivated is not forthcoming. Huddleston made no such mistake. He studied law, in deed, but he was a far more zealous student of the art of making himself agreeable in society. Erelong Society rewarded her votary, and briefs were left at Mr. Huddleston's chambers. Sir Charles Russell is re ported to have said to an officious interviewer that there are three prerequisites for success at the bar,— ready money, good health, and the power to array facts in order of time. No one can overestimate the importance of the last of the three. Cases are constantly presented before the tribunals, in a manner which does murderous violence to literary taste, to logic, and to grammar. " Let me have the facts in alphabetical order," said a
