tress. When he
was intent upon a subject, he was exceedingly impatient of
anything that interrupted the current of his thought. So
he was a hard person for young advocates, or for any other
unless he were strong, self-possessed, and had the respect
of the Judge. My old friend and partner, Judge Washburn,
once told me that he dreaded the Law term of the Court as
it approached, and sometimes felt that he would rather lay
his head down on the rail, and let a train of cars pass over
it, than argue a case before Shaw. The old man was probably
unconscious of this failing. He had the kindest heart in
the world, was extremely fond of little children and beautiful
young women, and especially desirous to care for the rights
of persons who were feeble and defenceless.

I was myself counsel before him in a case where the question
was whether a heifer calf, worth six or seven dollars, the
offspring of the one cow which our law reserves to a poor
debtor against attachment, was also exempt. My opponent undertook
to make some merriment about the question, and there was some
laughter at the Bar. The old Chief Justice interposed with
great emotion: "Gentlemen, remember that this is a matter
of great interest to a great many poor families." There was
no laughter after that, and that heifer calf did duty in many
a trial afterward, when the young advocates at the Worcester
Bar had some poor client to defend.

The Chief Justice had not the slightest sense of humor. When
old Judge Wilde, the great real property Judge, died after
an illustrious judicial service of thirty-five years, somebody
showed Chief Justice Shaw a register published in Boston which
recorded his death, "Died in Boston, the Honorable Samuel
S. Wilde, aged eighty, many years Justice of the Peace." It
was passed up to the Bench. The old Chief Justice looked
at it, read it over again, and said "What publication is this?"

In the old days, when the lawyers and Judges spent the evenings
of Court week at the taverns on the Circuit, the Chief Justice
liked to get a company of lawyers about him and discourse
to them. He was very well informed, indeed, on a great variety
of matters, and his talk was very interesting and full of
instruction. But there was no fun in it. One evening he
was discoursing in his ponderous way about the vitality of
seed. He said: "I understand that they found some seed of
wheat in one of the pyramids of Egypt, wrapped up in a mummy-
c