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and recreation. There is now no living evidence of the greater part of the work he and his colleagues did. Nothing now shows it except the hundreds of decrees entered at each term. But outside of the examination of cases to be decided orally, he put a great deal of patient study on the writing of his opinions in cases where the court directed opinions should be written; and each of them is a finished literary production. The strain of this work proved too much for him; it exhausted his vitality. He yielded to what was seemingly a trifling illness, and died rather suddenly at Memphis, May 17, 1890. There has rarely occurred the death of any public man in Tennessee whose taking-off was the occasion of the expression of so much sorrow throughout the State.

The opinions of Judge Folkes have stood well the test of time. It so happened that it fell to his lot to deliver many opinions on the law of corporations and of commercial paper, — two branches of, the law that are among the most important, and in which the fiercest legal battles are fought. Judge Folkes never touched one of these questions but that he illuminated it; and as the years have passed by, and lawyers have had full opportunity to examine his judicial utterances closely, the greater respect his opinions have commanded. They are smoothly expressed in the best of English; following established precedents where there is no conflict of authority, but seeking only the better logic and sounder reason where the

adjudicated cases were at variance. In the stating of the conflict, the opposing authori ties were fully enumerated; but mere num bers of cases availed nothing in balancing his mind. It is safe to say that the years to come will only add to the high regard in which the opinions of Judge Folkes are now held.

John Summerfield Wilkes was born in Maury County, Tenn., March 2, 1841. His parents were of English extraction, who had removed to Tennessee from Virginia about 1810. He was educated at Pleasant Grove Academy, in his native county, an institution chartered and founded by his father and then famous as a training - school for boys. He afterward entered the Wesleyan University at Florence, Ala. While a student at that university, May 1 6, 186 1, he enlisted as a private in the Third Tennessee Regiment. He was captured at Fort Donelson, and was in prison for some months it Camp Douglass. On his exchange he was made a captain in his old regiment, which was then re-organized. He was afterward made purchasing commissary for Mississippi and Tennessee; and though it was out of the line of his duty, he continued to take part in all the engagements that took place. On his return from the war, he began to read law under John C. Brown at Pulaski, and was licensed in January, 1866. He began the practice at Pulaski in partnership with A. J. Abernathy. In 1871 he was appointed Adjutant-Gen-