Life — March 21, 1889 — page 9: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

> LIFE: 167 WILLIAM MAXWELL EVARTS. 'HE great mistake of the life of Senator William Maxwell Evarts lies in the circumstance that he chose Boston as his birthplace ; though, as he was young and inexperienced at the time, more or less under the con- trol of his parents, and had not pre- viously visited New York, he is not so blameworthy as if he had con- tinued to live in Boston after arriv- ing at years of discretion, It is to his credit that he came to this city so soon as he reached his majority, and that he is yet unable to recall the wretchedness and misery of his mis-spent youth without emotion and gratitude to the beneficent Being who created New York. Indeed, Mr. Evarts, who would not be called obese by a just and intelligent ob- server, is said to have once confided to the Hon. Thomas Porterhouse Ochiltree his belief that, had it not been for the effects of that early period, of breakfast at seven, dinner at twelve, and tea at six, with pie at each meal, he (Evarts) might now pos- sess as majestic a facade as the one that ornaments the Honorable, the ex-President of these United States. Of Senator Evart’s earlier life, when he bought his hat, it is scarcely necessary to speak, Every one is fa- miliar, too, with the circumstances of his friendship for Charles Dickens, who fashioned Alfred Jingle’s elocu- tion upon the Evartsian model, after listening to his address as counsel for President Andrew Johnson dur- ing the impeachment trial, a quarter of a century after “The Pickwick Papers” were written, Senator Evarts’ legal career may be considered a successful one, since he has officiated professionally in a great many cases that have brought his name into the newspapers. Among other causes that were re- ported at length, aside from the im- peachment of Johnson, that we have mentioned, are those of the Ala- bama arbitration, in which Senator Evarts argued the side of the United States at Geneva before a royal flush, and the case of Tilton vs. Beecher, in Brooklyn, where he led the cohorts of the defense. He also argued the Republican steal be- fore the Electoral Commission in 1877, and, as a result he was made Secretary of State by R. B. Hayes during the term for which Tilden was elected. As a public speaker Senator Evarts is limited only by his vocabu- lary, and not by the conventional trammeling of the lav. ef punctu- ation. Among his published addresses are : ‘‘ The Centennial Oration before the Linonian Society of Yale College,” containing two full stops. and‘a semicolon, in 1853; the speech before the New England Society “in 1854, which contains four commas and an exclamation point ; the LIFE'S GALLERY OF BEAUTIES. No. 10. HON, WILLIAM M, EVARTS. eulogy of Chief Justice Chase, with a hyphen and an interrogation mark at the end; the Centennial oration at Philadelphia, where the end of a sentence got caught in the band-wheel of the Corliss engine and stopped the machinery; and the speeches in this city, at the un- veiling’ of the statues of Webster and Seward, in which experts have, been unable to detect any indications of punctuaticn at all. Senator Evarts has not had much to say in the legislative halls of the nation since, his term began, it being understgcd that he made an arrangement with the rest of the Senate not to speak during the first two years of his term, iw consideration of his being given the @niire session of the 52d Congress, in order that he may get at the oint of whatever argument may then engage his attention. * comicbooks.com