Fifty years in Wall Street
carried to such an extent in some of the instances just referred to,
that very few responsible parties, who know anything about the _modus
operandi_ of qualifying as a surety, are willing to respond to such
calls of friendship. Hence, one of the difficulties in obtaining good
bondsmen, and an additional reason why the professional straw men are so
plentiful.
It probably helps the business of the latter, between whom and the
abusive lawyers there may be an understanding on “boodle” principles.
I shall relate an instance which I consider worthy of permanent record
illustrative of the matters to which I here refer, in which my firm was
victimized.
On the occasion referred to, my firm sued a client for a just debt of
sixteen thousand dollars. The case was sent to a referee, whose
standing, in his particular line, was unquestioned at the time, and very
few men, in his circle, had better family connections. He stood high in
his profession and both sideS were satisfied with the choice. The case
was very long and tedious, having been drawn out to a most provoking
extent by encumbering the record with immense piles of irrelevant
matter. The renewed calls for legal fees on both sides were numerous and
vexatious, yet there was no help but graceful submission to the payment
of this tribute.
After a number of years it was reluctantly conceded by the lawyers that
the evidence was all in on both sides. The litigants breathed heavy and
responsive sighs of relief, each side being confident of victory.
A short time prior to the close of the case, the referee spoke to me,
gratuitously offering his advice to settle the case, as he said he
intended to give a decision adverse to my firm. To this I demurred, and
expressed my determination to fight the case to the bitter end.
The result was, however, that my firm not only did not get a decision in
its favor for the $16,000 to which it was justly entitled, but this
claim was wiped out by this Daniel come to judgment, who gave a decision
in favor of the defendant for $132,000.
I regarded this award as such a terrible outrage upon justice that I
obtained a stay of proceedings, and made an appeal, setting forth
therein the advice given to me by the referee to settle before the case
was closed.
Judge Fancher, who wrote the opinion on behalf of the bench, consigned
that referee to everlasting disgrace, and set aside his opinion. There
the case ended.
Another instance in my experience will illustrate the point which I have
made in regard to the sympathy exhibited by juries with those whom they
regard, rightly or wrongly, as oppressed. At one time I had employed a
clerk at the rate of $2,000 per annum. He was a great disappointment to
me in regard to competency, for the work for which I had engaged him,
and for his entire lack of application to, as well as deficiency in, the
department to which he was assigned. At the end of the first year,
therefore, I gave him notice, in presence of two competent witnesses,
that I should not require him after his year had expired, and advised
him to look out at once for another situation. On the last day of the
year he came to me with tears in his eyes and said that he had been
unable to obtain another place, owing to the bad times prevailing, and
begged me, in the name of his family, who was solely dependent upon him,
to keep him in my services still longer, until he could get another
situation. Purely out of sympathy for his condition, and believing his
story, which was very plausible and pathetic, I told him that he might
remain a short time longer on the same salary, but that I should require
him to use all his exertions to get another place as speedily as
possible.
When he entered on the second term his services were no more use to me
than a fifth wheel is to a coach. After the expiration of a few weeks, I
sent for him and inquired if he had got another situation; I said I had
given him ample time to obtain one, and that I could not consent to keep
him any longer. I therefore requested my cashier to draw a check to his
order for the balance of his wages, up to date, filled in as a part of
the body thereof with the words “payment in full for all claims and
demands.”
Thereupon he left my employment, but called repeatedly at the office
afterward. I assumed that his visits were simply for the purpose of
paying his respects. At the expiration of the second year I received a
notice of suit which he had commenced in Brooklyn for the balance of
salary due him for the year, being at the rate of $2,000 a year for ten
months.
The case came up duly in the Brooklyn court, his only witness being his
father, who had made several calls upon me after the discharge of his
son, on the strength of which he set forth, in his evidence, certain
conferences that should have taken place between him and myself, the
greater part of which were purely fictitious. He was the only witness
called on the side of the plaintiff, while I had five or more witnesses
to substantiate the facts, as I have related them, in relation to the
young man’s discharge, all of them being of most excellent character.
Strange to say, the jury entirely ignored the overwhelming testimony on
my side, and seemed to be altogether influenced by the “spread-eagle”
address of the defendant’s counsel, which I am free to say was both able
and ingenious. He drew a harassing picture of the poverty of the young
man, and presented the imminent destitution of his family in a most
pitiable light, brought about solely by the ruthless treatment of this
hard-hearted millionaire and bloated bondholder. Hence the verdict was
made, through the force of counsel’s oratory, to depend exclusively on
the sympathy of the jury, irrespective of the evidence.
The case occupied several days, with five or six employees from my
office in constant attendance, who were obliged to carry to and from
court, every day, huge books and large quantities of papers, disturbing
the regular business of the office in a very disagreeable manner.
After counsel had gone over the ordinary rigmarole in reviewing the
testimony, the jury went through the formality of retiring, to keep up
appearances, and after a brief interval of absence returned to court
with a verdict for the deeply injured clerk for back pay, together with
interest for the ten months during which he had not rendered me an
hour’s service.
My lawyer was easily able to obtain fresh evidence from other sources,
but he had not considered it necessary to put any more witnesses on the
stand, as he had regarded the testimony already produced more than
ample, so sanguine was he of success, and so fully satisfied of the
plainness of his case, which he considered had only one side, and that
in my favor.
The jury, however, put the boot on the other foot, upset all my
counsel’s calculations and showed him that his law went for nothing
where the famous twelve had the right to judge and legislate at the same
time in accordance with their sympathies and prejudices. Still he went
through the formality of going before the judge with new evidence, and
applied for a new trial, which was ordered on the ground that the
verdict was not in accordance with the weight of evidence.
The new case was called after the customary delays, and the same ground
was duly traversed again, with my additional witnesses, before another
highly intelligent jury, whose prejudices were all on the side of the
greatly injured young man, who sought twelve months’ pay for two months’
useless services. The only witness that appeared again for the defendant
was his faithful and veracious father, whose memory was marvellously
correct in relation to his former statements on the first trial.
There is an old proverb which says that it requires such men to have
good memories. I need not quote it, as almost everyone knows it.
To make a long story short, however, that forensic orator appeared again
for his poverty-stricken client, armed with all the old enthusiasm
exhibited on the former trial. He had not much new matter to present,
but his dramatic attributes, by dint of longer practice, and more
familiarity with his side of the case (it was only necessary for him to
study the one side) had become considerably improved since his former
effort, and it is needless to say that he carried the jury with him.
By that intelligent safeguard of our liberties, the jury, the second
trial was only regarded as an aggravated case of persecution, on my
part, and the verdict was given more cheerfully in favor of the
plaintiff than on the former occasion.
Although it would have been much better for me, from a financial point
of view, to have paid the amount of the exaction, with all the legal and
illegal fees and impositions connected therewith, yet I felt disinclined
to be bamboozled in that way.
When the court was applied to for another new trial, the judge said, “I
have already given you one new trial, taking the responsibility. The
relief you now ask has already been before two juries, and I am not
willing to take upon me any additional responsibility in the matter. You
must therefore look for any further rights or redress to which you may
consider yourself entitled, to the Court of Appeals.”
The case is now, therefore, awaiting the good time and discretion of the
Court of Appeals, where it will, in all probability, be heard and
adjudicated upon sometime within the next ten years. In the meantime the
young man is happy in the reflection that his judgment is a good
investment, drawing six per cent. interest.
There is still another case illustrative of some of the peculiar points
referred to, and showing the truth of the maxim among lawyers that, “You
never know what a jury will do,” in which I had the honor, or the
misfortune to be joined.
A well-known outside broker in Wall Street, who had a large experience
in transacting business for Mr. Sage and other notabilities of the
street, in “puts,” “calls,” and other exterior securities, came to me
one afternoon and asked me if I didn’t want to buy a pair of diamond
earrings.
At that time I had not begun my career as a dealer in diamonds, except
in one solitary instance, and that was when I purchased the wedding
ring, which is one of the requisites in a matrimonial contract for a
long term. I was, therefore, comparatively a tyro in the business, and
the party with whom I was dealing did not fail to take advantage of my
inexperience. I made some inquiry about the diamonds from this broker,
to which I received apparently satisfactory answers, and I concluded
they would suit my wife, and as I had had a good day’s business I made
him an offer of a thousand dollars for the precious ornaments, which he
quickly accepted, and I paid him the money.
In the course of a few weeks after I was waited upon by a diamond dealer
and his lawyer, with neither of whom I had the honor of any previous
acquaintance, and they accordingly introduced each other. The diamond
dealer introduced the lawyer and _vice versa_. I immediately concluded I
was going to get a good stock order from both of them, but I was soon
disappointed as well as surprised to find that these gentlemen had
called on an entirely different kind of business, which was totally
devoid of commissions on any stock transactions.
They said I had a pair of earrings belonging to them, and I declined to
give them up except on return of my thousand dollars.
These two gentlemen bade me good day, and in the course of time I was
served with the usual legal papers in a suit which reached the calendar
after some time. The young man who sold me the diamonds was put on the
stand. He testified that he had received them from a certain diamond
broker, but not the dealer in question, with whom he had had no