It is to be presumed that the readers of this book will expect a few words on a subject "on which," as Lord Byron somewhere remarks, "all men are supposed to be fluent and none agreeable—self." However much the inclination and, I might add, temptation may run in the direction of fluency and diffuseness in this case, my utterance shall be as brief as possible. I, William F. Howe, founder of the law firm of Howe & Hummel, was born in Shawmut street, in Boston, Mass., on the seventh day of July, 1828. My father was the Rev. Samuel Howe, M. A., a rather well-known and popular Episcopal clergyman at the Hub in those days. Our family removed to England when I was yet very young, and consequently my earliest recollections are of London. I remember going to school, where I speedily developed a genius for mischief and for getting into scrapes. I received a liberal allowance of the floggings then fashionable, and I can recall the hwhish of the implement of torture to this day. We are all young but once, and when memory calls up the lively pitched battles, and the pummelings I got and gave at school, I am young again—only my waist is a good deal more expansive, my step is not so elastic or my sight so clear. I could recall the names of some of those boys with whom I fought in those happy school days, and tell how one now adorns the British bench, how another holds a cabinet portfolio, how another fell bravely fighting in Africa, and how several, striving neither for name or fame,

"Along the cool, sequestered vale of life
Pursue the noiseless tenor of their way";

but it would be useless, as would also my experiences at church, listening to my good father's sermons, and falling constantly asleep.

My youthful reminiscences of events which happened, and of which I heard or read in my youth, are mostly chaotic and incongruous; but it is otherwise with the murders. I remember with what thrilling interest I read the story of Greenacre, who cut up the body of his victim, carrying the head wrapped up in a handkerchief, on his knees in the omnibus, and who was supposed to have nearly fainted with fright when, on asking the conductor the fare, received the answer, "Sixpence a head!" Then there was the horrible Daniel Good, the coachman at Roehampton, and the monster Courvoisier, the Swiss valet, who murdered his master, Lord William Russell. These atrocities and the trials at Old Bailey, no doubt, gave my mind the bent for the criminal law, not that I was in any sense conscious of the possession of superior powers. It was merely the selective tendency of a fresh and buoyant mind, rather vigorous than contemplative, and in which the desire for a special field of action is but the symptom of health.

At the age of twenty, I entered King's College, London, with the son of the great American statesman and historian, Edward Everett, and succeeded in graduating with some distinction. Soon after, I entered the office of Mr. George Waugh, a noted barrister. 1 had the good fortune to meet the commendation of Mr. Waugh, and I was consequently placed at the head of his corps of assistants, and frequently appeared in the English courts in place of my employer. My connection with this office lasted about eight years, and then, in pursuance of an intention long prior formed and never relinquished, I returned to the country of my birth. My earliest essays at the American bar have been fairly and impartially told by another pen, and, as the autobiographical form of narrative has its limitations as well as its advantages, the reader will pardon me if in this place I drop the "ego" and quote:

"On arriving here, Mr. Howe entered the office of E. H. Seeley, Esq., one of our oldest legal practitioners. Here he remained one year, studying American law and practice with persistent assiduity, and frequently appearing in our courts, 'by grace,' until he was fully licensed. And it may be here stated that out of a list of over one hundred candidates for admission to the bar only eighteen passed, and in that number was included the young lawyer from London.

"His first case of importance in this city was one of extreme delicacy, being a test question as to whether Col. Walter W. Price, a wealthy brewer, was entitled to the position of Colonel of the First Cavalry Regiment, N. G. S. N. Y., he having received the second highest number of votes. Mr. Howe took the ground that his client was entitled to the office, being a resident of this city, while his competitor, Smith, the founder of the great umbrella house, who had received the largest number of ballots, resided in Brooklyn. This question was argued before the Brigade Court, and, its decision being adverse, Mr. Howe carried the case to the Court of Appeals, where a favorable decision was rendered, and Mr. Price duly installed in the position. This was the young lawyer's first technical victory of note, and it brought him almost at once into considerable prominence.

"He soon after opened an office at the corner of Chambers and Centre streets, devoted his entire time and energy to civil matters, was highly successful, and soon achieved a considerable 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 in Boston, July 27, 1849; came, with his parents, to this city at an early age; attended Public School No. 15, on East Fifth street, and made my acquaintance on a January morning before he was fourteen years old. I have at hand a newspaper clipping, taken from the Rochester, N. Y., Democrat and Chronicle of March 25, 1877, in which is printed an elaborate notice of the law firm of Howe & Hummel, in which the junior partner is thus characterized:

"Soon after Mr. Howe opened his office, a bright lad, conversant with foreign languages, applied on a cold January morning, in the year 1863, for employment, and was accepted. His duties as office boy were to answer questions, make fires, do errands, and do copying and translations. Such was his winning address, his ready tact, his quick perceptions, his prudence and discretion, that he not only performed his duties to perfection but, in his few spare moments, learned law. While he grew but little in stature, he made great progress in his chosen profession. As he had fluent command of the German language—a useful adjunct to the practice of a criminal lawyer in New York—and gave promise of attaining a high rank as an advocate, Mr. Howe made him his partner before he was admitted to the bar. To-day, in stature, he is probably the smallest professional man in America; but size is not 'the standard of the man,' and if Abe's stature were in proportion to his merit he would be a veritable giant indeed."

With this sentiment I most cordially coincide, and at the same time bring these somewhat rambling and discursive reminiscences to an end.

WILLIAM F. HOWE.