His management
of cases in court was artistic. So well taken were the preliminary
steps, so deeply laid was the foundation, so complete and
comprehensive was the preparation of evidence and so adroitly
was it brought out, so carefully studied and understood were the
characters of jurors,--with their whims and fancies and
prejudices,--that he won verdict after verdict in the face of
the ablest opponents and placed himself by general consent at
the head of the jury lawyers of the Suffolk Bar." Adjectives less
ambiguous and more uncomplimentary than "shrewd" were also applied
to him, and his manner of dominating his juries did not always
call forth praise from his contemporaries. In one of the newspaper
obituaries at the time of his death it is admitted that he had
been "charged with resorting to tricks unbecoming the dignity of
a lawyer," but the writer adds that it is an open question if
some, or indeed all of them were not legitimate enough, and might
not have been paralleled by the practices of some of the ablest
of British and Irish barristers. Both in law and in business--for
he had important commercial interests--he had prospered. He was
rich and a man of the world. Boston, although critical, had not
found it unnatural that he should make himself talked about in
his conduct of jury trials; but the conspicuousness of his conversion
was of another sort: it offended against good taste, and incurred
for him the suspicion of hypocrisy.
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