ble share of popularity. In
1859, finding himself crowded with business, he removed to his present
large suite of offices on the corner of Centre and Leonard streets,
which had formerly been occupied by the late Judge Russell, and from
that time down to the present he has made criminal matters a specialty.

"Mr. Howe's first appearance in the New York courts as a criminal lawyer
was in 1859. A man, by the name of Devine, had been tried and convicted
in the Court of Special Sessions on a charge of larceny. He took
Devine's case to the General Term of the Supreme Court, contending that
the conviction was illegal, inasmuch as the statute provides that
_three_ justices should sit, whereas at the trial of Devine but _two_
had attended. Many members of the bar laughed at him, declaring his
position untenable. In this he was opposed by Assistant District
Attorney, the present Chief Justice, Sedgwick. The Court decided the
point well taken and ordered the discharge of the prisoner, Devine.

"In defending a German named Jacob Weiler, indicted for the murder of
his wife, by shooting, in 1862, Mr. Howe took the ground that the
deceased shot herself, a discharged pistol being found by her side. This
case was very thoroughly canvassed by the entire press of the city, and
occasioned the greatest excitement among the German population. The
trial lasted eight days, and resulted in a disagreement of the jury. At
this stage of the proceedings, owing to a misunderstanding (which it
would hardly be in good taste to explain at this late day), Mr. Howe
withdrew from the defense. Other counsel were substituted, when the case
was re-tried, and the prisoner was convicted and sentenced to state
prison for life.

"Mr. Howe has tried more capital cases than any six lawyers in America
combined. There has not been a murder case of note for the past
twenty-five years in which he has not appeared as counsel. The records
of the Courts of Oyer and Terminer and General Sessions show that he has
tried more than three hundred homicide cases since the year 1860. Mr.
Howe, as a specialist in diseases of the brain, is regarded by
physicians as the peer of the most eminent alienists in practice."

The circumstances under which Mr. A. H. Hummel became associated with
me, first as an office boy, in 1863, at a salary of two dollars per
week, and subsequently, in May, 1869, as my partner, have been told more
than once in the public press. Mr. Hummel was born