Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 10.pdf/180

4

Some Virginia Lawyers of the Past and Present. where, it was said, there was a band of horsethieves headed by a certain Captain Perkins. As she rode along she was joined by a handsome stranger who said : " Madame, are you not afraid to ride such a fine animal through a country infested by horsethieves?" Mrs. Keith had heard Captain Perkins described and had recognized him,

so she quietly replied: "Oh, no, for I have heard that Cap tain Perkins, the cap tain of the band, is a perfect gentleman, and I know he would not allow an unpro tected woman to be molested." A little further on they neared her home, and with a low bow he said : "Madam, I have brought you to a place of safety; I am Captain Perkins," and dashed away. Judge Keith learned from his parents a love of patriotism and of all things good and noble. His early studies were con JAMES ducted by private tu tors. He studied law at the University of Virginia, and had just begun to practice when the war began. Joining the famous Black Horse Company, he served as a private until December, 1863, when he was made adjutant of the regiment. After the war he formed a part nership with Col. John S. Mosby, the gal lant Confederate soldier, and practiced until 1869, when he was sent to the legislature from Fauquier County. He was elected judge of the Eleventh Virginia Circuit before he was thirty, and was the youngest judge on the State bench. When someone spoke of

157

his youth to his law partner, Colonel Mosby replied : "Age has nothing to do with it, he was born a judge," and so it would seem, for during all the years he presided, as a lawyer said, " He increased in wisdom, in the affectionate regard of the lawyers who prac ticed before him, and in the general esteem of the people." One of his most important decisions was in an injunction suit of the Al exandria and Wash ington R. R. Com pany vs. the Corpor ation of Alexandria. The railroad was under obligation to build a depot on one of the principal streets of Alexandria and had never done so, but had blocked up the street with freight and passenger cars, making nearly useless one of the most frequented thoroughfares. The council ordered the track taken up in thirty days or they would have it torn up, and the railroad got out an injunction. It KEITH. was to dissolve this in junction that the suit was brought. In commenting upon the case a leading journal said : " Judge Keith is not only one of the best men in private life, but brings to his high office a firm dignity— a purity which commands absolute confi dence and a judicial mind of the highest order, and he bids fair to be the first of any whose name is inscribed on the rolls of Virginia jurists." Judge Keith is one of the best loved men in Virginia, and when, in 1894, he was ap pointed to the Court of Appeals and elected its president, there was general satisfaction