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LTi- »— , Cornell University Library 
 KF 368.A75P56 
 
 In memoriam.Mlchael Arnold. 
 
 3 1924 018 821 581 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tiiis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924018821581 
 
777>.cAa^ CU'iX^ , 
 
In flQemotiam. 
 
 MICHAEL ARNOLD. 
 
Press of 
 
 Allen, Lane & Scott, 
 
 Philadelphia. 
 
MICHAEL ARNOLD. 
 
 Born July 17, 1840, 
 
 Admitted to the Bar July 17, 1863. 
 
 Judge of Court of Common Pleas, No. 4, 
 
 County of Philadelphia, 
 
 1883 TO 1903, 
 
 Died April 24, 1903. 
 
THIRD INAUGURATION OF JUDGE ARNOLD. 
 
 January 5TH, 1903. 
 
 The inauguration of the Hon. Michael Arnold, on 
 Monday, January 5th, 1903, to his third term as Judge 
 of the Court of Common Pleas, No. 4, of Philadelphia 
 County, was attended by a large gathering of promi- 
 nent and representative members of the Bar, whose 
 manifest interest in the ceremony showed that their 
 attendance was far from perfunctory, and may be 
 taken as a fair indication of the esteem and affection 
 in which he was held by the profession. Judge 
 Arnold's relations with the Bar had always been so 
 kindly and cordial that it is not surprising that there 
 should have been a strong and widespread desire to 
 show him any mark of respect and affection within 
 their power. Perhaps no judge had done more to 
 help maintain that sense of common brotherhood 
 between the Bench and Bar, referred to by Mr. 
 Dickson in his admirable address, the importance of 
 which to the proper administration of justice cannot 
 well be overestimated. 
 
 The proceedings were simple, but impressive. 
 
6 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 Judge Willson read the following letter: 
 
 January 4th, 1903. 
 
 My Dear Judge Arnold: — It is one of the great crosses 
 of my life that I shall not be able to be in court to-morrow to 
 read your commission, and to participate in the ceremonies 
 which will attend your inauguration for a third term for the 
 high office which you hold with such universal satisfaction, 
 and filled with so much dignity and honor. Until to-day I 
 had still hoped to be able to be with you to-morrow, but the 
 fresh cold which I took on Christmas day has unfortunately 
 fallen upon my larynx and produced such a condition in my 
 throat that my physician forbids me to go out to-morrow. I 
 am at this moment so hoarse that I can hardly make myself 
 understood when speaking. It is a very great disappoint- 
 ment. Indeed, I count it as a great misfortune that I am de- 
 barred by this unexpected state of things from joining your 
 inntimerable friends to-morrow in the public honors which are 
 to attend your inauguration. 
 
 I have requested my deputy, Charles B. Roberts, Esq., 
 
 to attend in my place, if agreeable to you, and to read the 
 
 Governor's commission in my place. I remain affectionately 
 
 yours, 
 
 M. RUSSELL THAYER. 
 
 To the Honorable Michael Arnold, President Judge. 
 
 The commission of Judge Arnold was then read by 
 Charles B. Roberts, Esq., Deputy Prothonotary, and 
 the oath of office administered by Hon. Robert N. 
 Willson. 
 
 Samuel Dickson, Esq., addressing Judge Arnold 
 on behalf of the Bar, spoke as follows : — 
 
 Judge Arnold, the members of the Bar of your 
 Court are assembled here this morning to testify by 
 their presence the profound satisfaction with which 
 
MICHAEL ARNOLD. 7 
 
 they welcome your entrance upon another term of 
 judicial service, and to tender you their cordial and 
 earnest wishes for yotir health and happiness during 
 the coming year, and for many, many years to come. 
 It would oflEend your sense of modesty, and hardly be 
 decorous, to say in your presence and to your face, 
 what we are in the habit of saying of you when you 
 are absent. The occasion suggests, however, one 
 remark which is largely impersonal, and may be 
 made without impropriety. You have just been 
 unanimously re-elected to the office of Judge, after 
 having been imanimously renominated by the politi- 
 cal conventions of both political parties. It is true 
 that this was in pursuance of many precedents ; but 
 the rule which is sometimes spoken of as an tin- 
 written law, and which prescribes that a judge who 
 has done his duty is to be continued in service, has 
 done so much for the dignity and independence of 
 the judiciary, and depends so largely for its con- 
 tinuance upon the character and conduct of the 
 judges themselves, that whoever helps to confirm 
 and perpetuate it does a distinct service to the com- 
 munity and to the Bar. This you have been able to 
 do in a very noteworthy way, for you so behaved 
 yourself in your great office that, although a member 
 of the party in a hopeless minority, neither public nor 
 professional opinion would have tolerated for one 
 moment the mention of the name of any candidate 
 in opposition to you. 
 
8 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 You take yottr seat, therefore, this morning, not as 
 the representative of a part of the people of Phila- 
 delphia, nor tinder the slightest obligations to any 
 htiman being for your renomination or re-election, 
 but as a judge of the whole people without a dissent- 
 ing voice. It would be easy to enlarge upon this 
 thought, and to dwell upon the high political wisdom 
 with which the people of this city and county have 
 rendered the change in the Constitution, limiting the 
 term of the judges, comparatively harmless; but it is 
 enough to say that, by thus compelling adherence to 
 the rule whereby security has been restored to the 
 judicial tenure, you have conferred a benefaction 
 upon the public and the profession of which the value 
 cannot be easily exaggerated. 
 
 It will be permitted, perhaps, to add one word 
 more. At a great Bar dinner, in speaking to the 
 lawyers present of the relations between the Bench 
 and Bar, and how they were indissolubly associated 
 in the administration of the law. Judge Sharswood 
 said : ' ' We are all one brotherhood. ' ' More than any 
 other one man he helped to make his words a liv- 
 ing reality; and it is because we know and appreciate 
 how greatly you have helped to maintain the fraternal 
 relationship of which Judge Sharswood spoke, both 
 by what you have been and by what you have done, 
 outside of the court room as well as in it, that we are 
 gathered here this morning, and I am bidden to de- 
 liver to you this message of friendship and goodwill. 
 
MICHAEL ARNOLD. 9 
 
 Judge Arnold responded as follows: — 
 
 Mr. Dickson and Gentlemen of the Bar: — Your 
 hearty greeting upon my entry upon another term as 
 President Judge of this Court excites my profound 
 gratitude. The good opinion of the members of the 
 Bar has sustained me in the past, and will be my 
 support in the future. If, in the performance of my 
 duties, I have in any manner deserved the approval 
 of my fellow-citizens, it is because I have had able 
 lawyers to guide me by their learning and intelligent 
 arguments. The cordial and affectionate companion- 
 ship which has always existed between us has been 
 to me the happiest relationship I have enjoyed among 
 my fellow-men. You have held me up and spoken 
 weU of me, you have been my friends, you have fos- 
 tered and continued the good practice which prevails 
 in this community of re-electing judges without re- 
 gard to their political opinions, so long as they have 
 kept themselves out of partisan contests. You can 
 hardly know how happy you have made me by your 
 cordial greetings in Court and out of it, and how 
 happy a man can be who occupies the high position 
 to which you have elevated me and is contented with 
 it. My ambition is fully satisfied in the high office 
 to which my fellow-citizens, inspired and led by you, 
 have three times elected me. My obligation to you 
 will cease only with my life. 
 
 One word more on this happy occasion. I want to 
 acknowledge the uniform kindness and sympathy 
 
lO IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 I have received from my fellow-citizens during a 
 long illness. While I have never despaired of the re- 
 sult, yet I feel that the affectionate solicitude of my 
 friends has done very riiuch to hasten my restoration 
 to health. The hours of convalescence have been 
 shortened by the reflection that they had me in 
 mind, and joined their prayers with mine. I thank 
 you all for your presence here to-day, for the encour- 
 agement you give me by your presence, and hope that 
 we may pass many happy days and years together. 
 
MICHAEL ARNOLD. II 
 
 MEETING OF THE PHILADELPHIA BAR. 
 
 A MEETING of the members of the Philadelphia Bar 
 was held in Room H, Court of Common Pleas, No. 4, 
 on Tuesday. April 28th, 1903, at 12 M., to take ac- 
 tion upon the death of Hon. Michael Arnold. On 
 motion of Hon. Samuel Gustine Thompson, Hon. 
 Robert N. Willson was called to the Chair, and 
 Samuel M. Hyneman and John C. Bell, Esqs., and 
 Hon. Dimner Beeber were elected Secretaries. 
 
 Upon taking the Chair, Hon. Robert N. Willson 
 said: — 
 
 Brethren op the Bar: — It is not yet four 
 months since we gathered in this court room when 
 our departed brother, Michael Arnold, took the oath 
 of judicial office for the third time. 
 
 The unprecedented features of that occasion were 
 a well-deserved and sincere tribute to him as a noble 
 man and an accomplished judge, and they touched 
 his very soul. Doubtless the universal sympathy 
 which was felt for him, in view of his long illness, and 
 the profound admiration which his patient courage 
 had elicited, added some elements of peculiar interest 
 to the event, but that did not detract from the 
 
12 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 genuine feeling of regard and affection which was 
 due to him, in an exceptional degree, as a man and a 
 public officer. However sad the occasion referred 
 to may have been to those of us who had reason for 
 knowing what his bodily condition actually was, and 
 what were the prospects of a prolonged life for him, 
 who that was then present will ever forget the brave, 
 hopeful words with which he indicated his own out- 
 look and plans for the futtire? I have no doubt that 
 he spoke with all sincerity, for he was sanguine of 
 recovery until near the end. He was determined to 
 be well and strong again, if there was anything in 
 the power of a strong nature, coupled with skillful 
 surgical treatment, to bring back health and vigor. 
 He longed to live — ^to be among men- — ^to meet his old 
 friends — to enjoy life, as he did enjoy it when in full 
 health, royally and fully — and to take his share of 
 the work of the coiirt where he was respected and 
 loved, not less by his colleagues than by the Bar and 
 the community at large. But it was not so to be. 
 The judgment, from which no appeal lies, had gone 
 out that he must die. 
 
 Shall I stop here and give way to others, or will 
 you pardon me if, at this stage of this memorial 
 service, I add a few words to express my estimate of 
 the man and my sense of our loss? I am sure you 
 will, and it seems to me that eighteen years and more 
 of close association upon the Bench, and intimate 
 personal friendship, uninterrupted by a single in- 
 
MICHAEL ARNOLD. I 3 
 
 stance of harshness or misunderstanding on either 
 side, require that I shall say more about him. 
 
 Michael Arnold was a rare man. I do not say he 
 was a perfect man — where is such an one to be 
 found? — ^but he was, beyond all question, an excep- 
 tional man in the combination of the qualities which 
 make up the strength and the beauty of human 
 character. Gentleness, force, generosity, vigor, tact, 
 independence, and high principles were so happily 
 mingled in his constitution that each quality came 
 out as occasion required, but so modulated by his 
 other traits that the effect, though strong, was 
 gracious. He loved men. He loved to be with and 
 among them. There seemed to be something in his 
 nature which enabled hitn to enter sympathetically 
 into the life of every other man, and which drew 
 others to him instinctively. For such reasons his 
 personal acquaintance was large, and his friend- 
 ships were Warm and many. I venture to express 
 the belief that the death of no other man in our great 
 city would have produced such general and deep 
 sorrow as has his. 
 
 It is a great loss to the Bench and the Bar to have 
 such a man — so good, true, and high-minded — ^re- 
 moved from their midst. But our brother was no 
 less an example to us all in the zeal, ability, and 
 fideUty with which he discharged his duties as a 
 lawyer and a judge. 
 
 Methodical in his habits of study and work, well 
 
14 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 grounded in the learning of the law, practical in its 
 application, firm in its administration, clear in ex- 
 pressing it, and absolutely honest and impartial in 
 every phase and fibre of his thought and life in 
 relation to it, he was a judge of such high aims and 
 accomplishments that I am sure all of us who were 
 his colleagues and brothers of the Bench stand ready 
 to do him honor and to acknowledge that he has set 
 us an example which we may worthily follow. 
 
 From long personal association with him, I wish 
 to bear my testimony to his sagacious judgment, to 
 his cottrtesy in conference, to his kindly deference to 
 the views of his colleagues, to his desire to be helpful 
 and considerate towards them, and, generally, to the 
 kindly, warm-hearted, and genial temper which made 
 the intercourse of the judges of our covrt with him 
 most agreeable, and the memory of it most sweet and 
 tender. 
 
 But I must leave many phases of my subject to 
 others. This noble man — the good citizen, the true 
 friend, the strong and upright judge — ^has been taken 
 from us. 
 
 I cannot take you into the details of his experiences 
 for the past few years. It is too sacred, too sad a 
 story for public recital. If you had been a part of 
 it as I have been, your hearts would almost break. 
 Suffice it to say, that our friend and brother for many 
 weeks and months bore the most excruciating agony 
 that the htoman frame can endvire with heroic courage 
 
MICHAEL ARNOLD. 1 5 
 
 and with a gentleness and patience which were Httle, 
 if any, less than angelic. Not a bitter complaint — 
 not a rebellious word — escaped from his lips even in 
 the midst of extreme physical torture. If ever there 
 was a true hero, he was the man. No soldier on the 
 battlefield, or martyr at the stake, ever displayed a 
 more sublime cotirage. 
 
 It was fitting, therefore, that the public announce- 
 ment of his death should read that he "entered into 
 rest," and, in view of the certainty of the event, his 
 best and dearest friends might well have prayed that 
 peace and rest should come to his weary and worn 
 body and soul. 
 
 I know of no adequate explanation of his fortitude 
 and submission other than this — ^that he was, at 
 heart, a deeply religious man. He had no cant about 
 him. He made no display of his religion. He was 
 tolerant of the opinions of others. It was his habit, 
 from time to time, to attend the services of churches 
 other than his own. He was not an ascetic, nor did 
 he regulate his life according to strict and rigid rules 
 of conduct in matters not vital or essential, but he 
 was a man who feared God and loved righteousness. 
 The law of God and the life of Him whom he re- 
 garded as his Master were the mainspring of his life 
 and the foimdation of his character. 
 
 Let me close my remarks, already too long pro- 
 tracted, by relating for the first time what was told 
 me within the past two years by a distinguished 
 
1 6 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 clergyman of the church with which our brother was 
 connected. 
 
 My informant said that, on the day when Judge 
 Arnold was first sworn into judicial office, they met 
 each other on the street as the latter was on his way 
 to the court room to take the solemn oath of office 
 and to asstime its duties. The clergyman was then 
 asked by him to enter the house of God and to pray 
 with him and for him that he might discharge the 
 duties of his new position with fidelity and im- 
 partiality. This was done. They knelt at the altar. 
 The prayer was offered, and Michael Arnold in that 
 spirit and with such faith stepped to the Bench, 
 discharged its duties, and only left it when a Judge, 
 whose decree is final for all mankind, summoned him 
 away for higher and better service. 
 
 Alex. Simpson, Jr., Esq., said: — 
 
 Mr. Chairman: — On behalf of the members of 
 this Bar, united by a common sorrow, I desire to 
 present the following minute and resolutions, and 
 move their adoption: — 
 
 The Bar of Philadelphia meets this day to deplore 
 again the loss of one of its fellows, but it is no ordinary 
 sorrow that now calls us thus together. For nearly 
 forty years Judge Arnold has been going in and out 
 among us as one of ourselves; never more so than 
 during his judicial life of a little over twenty years. 
 It is not given to many men to make and hold so 
 
Mlt^AEL ARNOLD. 1 7 
 
 many friends, and to arouse so few jealousies and 
 enmities. It is given to fewer still to increase not 
 merely their influence in the community, but also 
 their friendships at the Bar, during a long service 
 upon the Bench. It is given to fewer yet to ex- 
 emplify in their judicial life that which the Bar 
 proudly asserts, but the public generally doubts, viz., 
 that the common sense of a case is nearly always its 
 legal solution. Possessing such rare characteristics, 
 who can wonder that, though a member of a minor- 
 ity political party, he was twice re-elected by the 
 unanimous vote of his fellow-citizens? 
 
 Judge Arnold's friendships never grew cold, and 
 his friends never became few. The comrades of his 
 early days, and the juniors who met him for the first 
 time as the judge, alike found in him a companion 
 and helpful friend. It was not in his nature to be 
 distant or repelling; and to none, except the most 
 depraved, did he ever utter a word which left a sting. 
 On the contrary, his deep knowledge of the motives 
 which actuate suffering humanity led him to turn 
 the steps of many unfortunates again into the path 
 of virtue. 
 
 With clearer vision than most of us, he looked 
 through the shadow cast upon the law by its legal 
 forms to the substance of the law itself, and sought 
 by statutory enactments and amended court rules, 
 to provide a simple and expeditious way for ascer- 
 taining and trying the real issue in every kind of 
 
X8 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 controversy. As a result, the law never became to 
 him a wearisome study, the office of judge never 
 became a sinecure, and the passing of the years only 
 brought to him a keener enjoyment in his work and a 
 greater certainty of approval by his brethren at the 
 Bar. With untiring industry and with singleness of 
 purpose, day by day he fulfilled his whole duty, never 
 more willingly than during his last illness, and never 
 with a greater certainty that every lawyer s heart 
 was with him in his great struggle. But a few 
 months ago we met with one accord to do him honor 
 on the occasion of his entry on his third term of 
 office, and now that term is closed by the final decree 
 of the Great Judge. The brave hopes he then ex- 
 pressed for future usefulness have not been realized, 
 but the memory of Michael Arnold as a judge, a 
 lawyer, and a man will he honored and cherished 
 after all of us who met with him then shall have 
 passed away. 
 
 The. members of the Philadelphia Bar do therefore 
 resolve : — 
 
 First. — ^That by the death of the Hon. Michael 
 Arnold we, one and all, have lost a friend, the State 
 has lost a learned jurist, and the community has lost, 
 a most valuable citizen. 
 
 Second. — ^That his earnestness, his diUgence, his. 
 friendliness, his impartiality, his magnificent com- 
 mon sense, and his sotmd legal judgment shall ever 
 be to us, and each of us, an inspiration and a hope 
 
MICHAEL ARNOLD. 1 9 
 
 Third. — ^That we tender to the bereaved members 
 of his family ovir heartfelt sjnnpathy in their great 
 loss, assuring them that we share that bereavement 
 with them, and pointing them to that Eternal 
 Sovirce from whence alone can come help and com- 
 fort in this their hotir of need. 
 
 Fourth. — That a copy of this minute and resolu- 
 tions, attested by the ofHcers of the meeting, be 
 transmitted to the family of Judge Arnold. 
 
 Hon. M. Russell Thayer said: — 
 
 Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Bench 
 AND Bar: — ^When the people of this great city heard 
 that Michael Arnold was dead, and that we should see 
 his face no more, a great sorrow fell like a cloud upon 
 them, for he was more widely known among them, 
 and, I think, better known than any judge who for 
 many years past has administered justice in this 
 county; and this was owing to an unusual combina- 
 tion of many attractive and admirable qualities, 
 partly and principally those qualities that belonged 
 to him as a judge, partly and in a great measure 
 those which characterized him socially and personally, 
 and in a large degree, also, those which marked him 
 distinctly as a man of the people, sprting from their 
 bosom, familiar with their pursuits, their wants, 
 their methods of life, devoted to their welfare, very 
 jealous of their rights, full of sympathy for their 
 troubles and of pity for their misfortunes, and re- 
 joicing in the sunlight of their prosperity. 
 
20 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 I believe that no man beyond the circle of his own 
 kindred knew him better than I did, and only one 
 man as well — ^Judge Willson — for so long a period 
 his colleague and mine, to whom he was greatly 
 attached, and whose great devotion to him through- 
 out his long and most distressing illness soothed 
 many a pang, m.oderated many a pain, and comforted 
 his afflicted spirit in many a dark hour. This is 
 indeed that kind of friendship, of true unselfishness 
 and devotion to others, which the Apostle describes 
 under the name of charity — ^that charity "that 
 seeketh not his own" and "never faileth." 
 
 Twenty years have rolled away since I first knew 
 Judge Arnold. During fourteen of those years, in 
 which I was President Judge of the Court of Com- 
 mon Pleas, No. 4, with him and Judge Willson for my 
 associates, this man sat almost daily by my side; and 
 now, while the air is yet filled with the sorrowful 
 regrets of all who knew him, and of that great 
 multitude of citizens who venerated him in his life 
 and now deplore his untimely death, just as he had 
 entered upon the third decade of his public life, I 
 desire here publicly to acknowledge the constant 
 and invaluable assistance which I received both from 
 him and Judge Willson (for those two can never be 
 separated in the history of the tribtinal in which they 
 served so long) during the period in which so many 
 important cases were argued and determined in this 
 court. 
 
MICHAEL ARNOLD. 21 
 
 Judge Arnold was a man of most extensive knowl- 
 edge, relating not only to the common affairs of life, 
 but also in that large range of subjects which most 
 concerned human society and human occupations. 
 He was skilled in all kinds of practical knowledge, 
 matters of trade and commerce, matters relating to 
 social relations, and affairs of men of all kinds, and 
 all kinds of business in which men are engaged. He 
 had, besides, a large acquaintance among all classes 
 of people in this city — a larger acquaintance than 
 any man I ever knew. His mind was of an ex- 
 tremely practical tvim. He always had some useful 
 suggestion to make upon all subjects and in all cases. 
 His memory was very remarkable, not only of events 
 and of men, but particularly so of the statutes of 
 the Commonwealth and of decided cases. I was 
 often astounded, not only at the scope of his rec- 
 ollection of decided cases, their names and histories, 
 but at the accuracy as well as the grasp of his memory 
 in that direction; and this trait, so conspicuous and 
 so strongly developed, was invaluable to the court. 
 His acquaintance throughout the State was very 
 extensive. He often displayed great familiarity mth 
 affairs, with events, and with men in other portions 
 of the State, and particularly so when they had re- 
 lation to his own profession. I think he knew more 
 State judges probably than any man within its con- 
 fines. In his disposition and in his daily intercourse 
 he was always most amiable and gracious; on the 
 
2 2 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 Bench he was always a patient Hstener, never 
 differing with his brethren for the sake of differing. 
 
 During his whole career in No. 4, while associated 
 with myself, he wrote only one dissenting opinion. 
 It was the case of a lady who applied for admission 
 to the Bar, and he dissented in that case only that 
 he might have the opportunity of putting his own 
 opinion upon record in a matter of historic interest 
 which had much disttirbed the public mind; for he 
 knew, as we all did, that females had been admitted 
 to the Bar of the Supreme Court of the United States 
 and of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, and that 
 the general question had therefore become res 
 judicata in the highest judicial tribunals, but he was 
 determined, nevertheless, to put his own opinion 
 upon record. Although conciliating and patient, he 
 had always been courageous and independent, as 
 every judge should be, in the expression of his 
 opinions. 
 
 All these fjualities and attainments made of Judge 
 Arnold a model judge. His sense of natural justice, 
 of that equity which rises often supreme above the 
 limitations of even the law itself, was as quick as was 
 his sense of responsibility to his Maker (for he was 
 a religious man) and his sense of duty to the people, 
 whose laws he administered, and this quality, this 
 instinct of justice, if I may call it such, is a quality 
 which I believe to be essential to the character of 
 every great judge. Every judge should constantly 
 
MICHAEL ARNOLD. 23 
 
 bear in mind the sajdng of Socrates, " The fellest of 
 all things is injustice." 
 
 Of the beauty of Judge Arnold's private life, and 
 of my own delightful intercourse with him, I dare 
 not here attempt to speak, nor of the pleasant rec- 
 ollections of days passed in his company outside of 
 the court room, as well as within its walls while we 
 sat side by side in the discharge of our daily duty. 
 Of such feelings the Scripture is written, " The heart 
 knoweth his own bitterness, and a stranger doth not 
 intermeddle with his joy." 
 
 All that remains for me now to say of my departed 
 friend is: — 
 
 " Good-night! Good-night! as we so oft have said 
 Beneath this roof at midnight, in the days 
 
 That are no more, and shall no more return. 
 
 Thou hast but taken thy lamp and gone to bed; 
 
 I stay a little longer, as one stays 
 
 To cover up the embers that still bum." 
 
 John G. Johnson, Esq., said: — 
 
 Mr. Chairman : — In reply to a toast at a dinner 
 given to Edwin Booth during the last days of his 
 life, as the bells rang in the New Year, he said: 
 "To-night you drink to my health; before the 
 next pealing of those bells, you will drink to my 
 memor)''." 
 
 When, in the beginning of this year, the Bench and 
 Bar thronged here to greet Judge Arnold as he en- 
 tered upon his third judicial term, in evidence of their 
 loving sympathy, had he any foreboding, that the 
 
24 
 
 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 flowers of the coming Spring would bloom upon his 
 grave, when, with a voice almost choked with emo- 
 tion, he thus concluded: "I thank you all for your 
 presence here to-day, for the encouragement you 
 give me by your presence, and hope that we may pass 
 many happy days and years together " ? If he had, 
 with the cotirage that distinguished him, he con- 
 cealed all indications of it, unwilling to cast a gloom 
 upon his assembled friends. As, at intervals, we 
 met him during his long, heroic battle with almost 
 unendurable pain, nothing he said or did disclosed 
 his tinceasing suffering; his smile was as sweet as 
 ever, and his greeting as kindly and warm. 
 
 The court room, with Judge Arnold, was not a 
 theatre in which to display him as the only, or even 
 as the principal, actor. It was a place in which 
 justice was to be administered through the con- 
 current efforts of all. The counsel who practiced 
 before him, though allowed full latitude, were not 
 permitted to lose sight of their subordinancy to the 
 end to be attained. With him, the judge was but 
 one part of the machinery of such administration, 
 charged with the duty of guiding and controlling, 
 but within limits. His control was not that of a 
 tyrant or of a martinet, but that of a gentleman, 
 kindly in speech and gentle in manner, determined 
 that what was right should prevail. He interrupted 
 only that it might prevail, not to embarrass or to 
 exhibit his superior learning. His patience and 
 
MICHAEL ARNOLD. 2$ 
 
 courtesy were inexhaustible. He listened with pa- 
 tience until the last word, helpful in the discussion, 
 had been uttered; with courtesy long after until the 
 end, however protracted. His mind was open to 
 conviction. Pride of opinion with him was merged 
 in his desire to do no wrong. He reached his con- 
 clusions only after most careful study and delibera- 
 tion. When reached, they were expressed learnedly, 
 lucidly, vigorously, with demonstration. His opin- 
 ion did more than settle the controversy in which it 
 was delivered. It established a precedent. It fell 
 to him, on several occasions, to deal with points of 
 first impression. What he wrote concerning them 
 will remain forever, part' of our jurisprudence. 
 
 His dominating moral trait was absolute honesty 
 of intention. Unusually sound, legal, common sense 
 was his most prominent mental characteristic. He 
 knew the law almost instinctively. 
 
 If all judges will discharge their duty as it was 
 performed by the one we motim, the law will 
 be respected, not by lawyers alone, but also by 
 laymen. 
 
 The only reminder, as to most of us, that we ever 
 existed, will be that cut upon the marble which will 
 cover us. In his case there should be graven these 
 words: "For twenty years, withotit shadow of 
 suspicion, fearlessly and without favor, cotirteously, 
 learnedly, almost without error, he expounded, 
 applied, and enforced the law." 
 
26 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 Hon. Craig Biddle said:— 
 
 Mr. President and Brethren of the Bar: — It is 
 a great gratification to me, and I may say that I think 
 it is the same to all the members of the Bench, to 
 have heard the beautiful and touching tribute which 
 you paid to the memory of your deceased colleague. 
 It has been a great gratification, I am sure, to all of 
 us to hear our friend. Judge Thayer, for so many 
 years connected with Judge Arnold, giving us the 
 recollections of years in which they have been as- 
 sociated. We have also heard the discussion of his 
 character from two of the most eminent members of 
 our Bar. All these things teach me one thing, 
 among others, that I should not attempt to follow 
 those individuals by putting in a weak way that 
 which they have given with so much vigor and 
 eloquence. 
 
 The quality of Judge Arnold which attracted, in 
 addition to his moral characteristics, was his intense 
 desire to make the law less complex, to simplify it 
 . in every form and way. He was so very successful 
 in carrying the public and Bar with him on many of 
 these things which are so familiar to the Bar, that it 
 would be superfluous for me to mention them. 
 
 It comes home to me to-day, descending from the 
 Quarter Sessions Court, where I have faced an 
 audience as large as this, to recall that only a few 
 years ago, when the Grand Jury desired to present 
 a bill to the court, the whole court was thrown into a 
 
MICHAEL ARNOLD. 27 
 
 convtilsion by twenty-four men suddenly appearing 
 in the room ; the people occupying the seats reserved 
 for them were compelled to vacate, and the bod)?- of 
 the Grand Jury appeared before the court ; the fore- 
 man presented the bills which he had; they then rose, 
 and with equal solemnity went out. This was not 
 only once in a day, but two or three times in a day, 
 and it struck the sagacious mind of Judge Arnold 
 that that was absurd and superfluous, and therefore 
 he induced the Bench to permit the foreman of the 
 Grand Jury to come in and present his bills and walk 
 out, so that when that was done two or three times 
 in the day, it was done without discomfort to any- 
 body. I mention that as a trivial matter, but to 
 show that his mind was always on the alert for doing 
 those sort of things which he thought brought about 
 greater convenience to everybody engaged in the 
 administration of justice. 
 
 Of course, I never sat upon the Bench with Judge 
 . Arnold, he being a member of the present court, and 
 I of a different one. My experience with him was in 
 sitting in the License Court. In 1893 the License 
 Covut was formed of Judge Hare, Judge Arnold, and 
 myself. Judge Arnold had been a most bitter oppo- 
 nent of the law from the start. He tried to induce 
 the judges to refuse to act tinder it. He considered 
 it unjudicial and not suited to the business which 
 judges were selected to perform. But he was over- 
 njled in that and the law was allowed to remain. He 
 
28 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 sat with us, but it was very evident that his heart was 
 not in it. He had been opposed to the whole thing. 
 He disliked the whole thing. He disliked the machin- 
 ery of it, and practically said, when we tried to interest 
 him with it, " Oh, you two can overrule me. You do 
 what you like." He seemed to be desirous that we 
 shotdd take the responsibility. Such was his view 
 of it in 1893. In 1898, five years later, he and I sat 
 together, and by that time all these questions about 
 taking it from us and making other tribunals had 
 got entirely at rest, and when we got together, I said, 
 " There is no use discussing the thing. We have got 
 to do it. Let us do it the best way we can." And 
 Judge Arnold took up that thought, with his usual 
 quickness, and it was, through his assistance, I think 
 very well done. I remember that he suggested that 
 we should visit a great many of these places and make 
 personal observations to form our judgments as to 
 whether the licenses should be granted. I told him 
 I would cheerfully if he would take me to the places, 
 as I had no such knowledge as would enable me ever 
 to go there ; and I was utterly surprised at the knowl- 
 edge that he had of the city of Philadelphia and the 
 accuracy with which he would take us to those places 
 and the very houses which we examined — sometimes 
 went into ; and he executed the whole duty with the 
 greatest accuracy and dispatch, and deserved a great 
 credit, which I think he received, as being very well 
 and admirably adapted to the trust which was con- 
 
MICHAEL ARNOLD. 29 
 
 fided in him. He knew everybody. He was familiar 
 with everybody and famihar with every place. That 
 was the last time we sat together. I think he got to 
 be quite fond of it and proud of it. 
 
 I was here on the day on which he was sworn in. 
 After he was sworn in, of course there was an amount 
 of congratulation among all of us, but [he came to 
 me and said, "Biddle, we will have that License 
 Court again now," and his face was flushed from the 
 excitement of the occasion, and as I looked upon it 
 I could not let it enter my sovl that he and I wotild 
 never again together sit on any tribunal. 
 
 Hon. Samuel G. Thompson said: — 
 
 True character will always stand the critical test 
 of intimate acquaintance, and will not, in conse- 
 quence, suffer any diminution in respect and regard. 
 The character of Judge Arnold furnishes a fine 
 illustration of this. If I may be permitted to refer 
 to personal knowledge, I can say without the slightest 
 exaggeration that the more intimately one knew him 
 the more his character grew in attractiveness, the 
 more his manhood increased in strength, and the 
 more his high qualities became striking. With him 
 intimacy led up to devoted friendship and produced 
 an enduring and unchanging feeling of deep regard 
 and affection. A character like his that can so stand 
 the critical test of close intimacy must indeed be one 
 of the highest order. As it stood individual tests, 
 
JO IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 SO it did those of the community. For twenty years 
 it turned its broad search-light upon his public and 
 official life and found no defect, no blots or blemish 
 that tended in the slightest degree to lower the 
 estimate placed upon him by his fellow-citizens. 
 They found in their contact with him that he was 
 uniformly frank, cordial, and kind and always dis- 
 played a fine type of lofty manhood. It may be said 
 with exact truth he was a true gentleman, gentle, 
 polite, and ever considerate. Such his character, he 
 was without doubt most popular with all classes of 
 men, and his popularity was not bom of a sham or a 
 pretense only intended to gain general applause and 
 produce a personal benefit, but it sprang from his 
 sincerity, truth, and upright action. His success in 
 this regard demonstrates most truly that he who 
 would win the best form of substantial popularity 
 can only do so by displaying manly virtues and by 
 adopting principle as the true rule of action. 
 
 A splendid career and brilliant achievements that 
 strike the imagination may bring permanent fame, 
 but a course of conduct and of life that makes a 
 positive lodgment in the hearts of men is a true 
 monument that appeals strongly to our higher and 
 better natures and is best illustrative of elevated 
 manhood. However conspicuous Judge Arnold was 
 in his official life, and however able he was in the 
 discharge of the important duties cast upon him, the 
 evidence that he lived best and worked out the true 
 
MICHAEL ARNOLD. 3t 
 
 principles of life may be found in the fact that he 
 had with him to a remarkable degree the hearts of 
 men — those of the young, those of the old, those of 
 the humble, and those of the powerful. His life was 
 strenuous in the best sense of the word. Strenuous, 
 not in affected effort at display or in endeavors to 
 work out eccentric results, but strenuous in a broad 
 desire to co-operate with men and to help them when 
 help was needed and to aid them when aid meant a 
 substantial benefit. Eulogism may in brilliant rhet- 
 oric ring out tones of eloquent thought expressive of 
 his intellectual development and high achievements, 
 but his strongest eulogy finds its best utterance in 
 the general expression of grief that has come spon- 
 taneously from all classes. With a character such as 
 he had, his conception of the administration of crim- 
 inal justice necessarily was of a high order; while he 
 strove to protect and secure society from the effect 
 of criminal misconduct, he sought to so impose pun- 
 ishment that it should operate, not to destroy the 
 individual, but should serve as a lesson from which 
 rnight be evolved improvement. Moderation and 
 not severity was his rule of action, and those who 
 knew him well understood the effort he made to 
 work out that result. His investigation in many 
 individual instances, with a view to the ascertain- 
 ment of the exact truth, strikingly illustrates that 
 while he was a true judge, he was a man full of 
 the best impulses. In his administration of civil 
 
32 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 justice he attained an exceedingly high standard 
 of excellence, and this because he brought to it 
 a fine intellectual equipment and an unusual de- 
 gree of common sense. A man with learning and 
 without common sense rarely becomes a good 
 judge, and a man with defective learning and 
 with common sense is often an unsatisfactory 
 judge; but a high order of learning, associated with 
 strong common sense well developed, makes a true 
 judge, aye, often a great judge. Judge Arnold pos- 
 sessed in an eminent degree the common sense so 
 necessary to constitute a good judge. The general 
 consensus of opinion has always been that he was 
 conspicuous for his common sense. Besides, he was 
 well equipped with the learning required by the pro- 
 fession. Originally well grounded, he continued to 
 keep in close touch with judicial decisions. Thus 
 equipped with learning and braced up with strong 
 common sense, his decisions were such as to com- 
 mand the respect of otir profession, so quick to with- 
 hold it if not deserved, and to cause them to be re- 
 ceived with confidence in their justice by the entire 
 community. And this confidence found a just ex- 
 pression in his long continuance in oflice, although 
 not a member of the dominating party. This sjDeaks 
 in no qualified way of his splendid character and 
 indicates that the people thoroughly appreciated his 
 courage, ability, and integrity in judicial office. The 
 loss of a good judge such as Judge Arnold was must 
 
MICHAEL ARNOLD. 33 
 
 be severely felt. Judicial functions so involve those 
 things which concern the individual as well as the 
 entire people, that when one who has them well in 
 his grasp is taken away the loss comes with a shock 
 that is felt not alone by the individual, but by the 
 whole community. 
 
 To-day the loss is shown by a general feeling of 
 grief over the death of Judge Arnold. Otir pro- 
 fession feels it most severely. Its older members 
 always found him earnest, able, and most ambitious 
 to reach just and accurate restilts. The younger 
 found him ever kind and considerate. It gave him 
 vmqualified pleasure to breathe into the young men 
 the bright spirit of hope when gloomy depression 
 generating fears of failure sat brooding over them. 
 Associated with him as I was in works which con- 
 cerned public charities, I can say that, busy as he 
 was, he was never too busy not to give them the 
 f idlest and most thorough attention and considera- 
 tion. When new steps were to be taken and new 
 developments were to be worked out, he was always 
 ready to do his full share of the work to be done. 
 He was indeed a great believer in all that was pro- 
 gressive and was no laggard in good work. 
 
 But why stand I here, in vain endeavor to give an 
 adequate description of his fine qualities of head and 
 heart, when there looms up a memory so eloquent of 
 his sterling worth, and recalling so vividly his lovable 
 personality, that expression almost fails and words 
 
34 IN MElSlORiAM. 
 
 seem to lose their ftiU significance, a naemory which 
 will remain unchanged and unchangeable as long as 
 life lasts and which only death with its grim hand 
 can tear away. 
 
 Samuel Dickson, Esq., said: — 
 
 Judge Arnold was a man of such transparent 
 sincerity of character that the impression produced 
 by a first acquaintance was only confirmed and 
 strengthened by the closest friendship and the 
 longest intimacy. Everything that has been said 
 and written of him since his death, therefore, has 
 been truthful and discriminating, and nothing novel 
 remains to be added. There is a value, however, 
 upon occasions like this, in mere reiteration, and 
 it is well that one after another should bear witness 
 to the completeness of his personality and the com- 
 petency and fidelity with which he discharged the 
 duties of his high office. 
 
 Some years ago Matthew Arnold made familiar 
 to us Dean Swift's phrase, "Sweetness and light." 
 It describes very happily the dominant charac- 
 teristics of Judge Arnold. His perfect suavity and 
 courtesy of manner never failed, because they were 
 innate. It was his good fortune not only to be 
 amiable, but to appear so. He had in a pre-eminent 
 degree the charm of pleasantness, and won the re- 
 spect and affection of all with whom he came in 
 contact. It was accordingly with the personal good- 
 
MIPHAEL Ji^piNOLD. 35 
 
 will of every member of the Philadelphia Bar, who 
 knew him, that he was first nominated and .elected 
 to the Bench; but he was not very generally known, 
 and there were misgivings on the part of some as 
 to his qualifications. He soon proved his fitiiess for 
 his work, and when, he came to exercise the multi- 
 farious and manifold powers vested in a judge of a 
 Court of Cornrnon Pleas, it was soon apparent that 
 the people of Philadelphia had secured the greatest 
 blessing that can corne to a community — -a great 
 magistrate. 
 
 In some respects, indeed, he was an ideal judge. 
 He understood that the administration of the law 
 was a practical art, and that the .abstract science 
 was, after all, meant to govern the relations and 
 transactions of men in real life ; and as the foundation 
 of his character was a strong, solid common sense, 
 he neither disregarded authority nor permitted himr 
 self to be misled into a servile following of precedent. 
 He was distinguished by open-mindedness and readi- 
 ness to learn, either from others or by his own re- 
 searches, and he listened to the arguments of the 
 yotmgest with patience and attention. When ?l new 
 question was presented, he welcomed discussion, 
 and tintil very recent years spent many an hour in 
 the Law Library following out his own investigaT 
 tions, and his opinions were often enriched by apt 
 citations which were the fniit of his investigations; 
 but he did not confine his studies to books, for he 
 
36 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 believed in the old doctrine that the proper study of 
 mankind was Man. All sorts and conditions of men 
 appeared before him, and he was in sympathy with 
 them all. He never betrayed any prejudice, for the 
 sufficient reason that he felt none; but he was under 
 no illusions, and he was seldom if ever deceived or 
 imposed upon; nor had he any morbid weakness to 
 prevent him, when occasion required, from enforcing 
 the law sternly, and, if necessary, with severity. He 
 was a man of the world, not in the colloquial sense of 
 one who knows the seamy side of life, but in the 
 broader and truer sense of one who knows the habits 
 and customs and doings of all classes, and he looked 
 upon all with a broad and kindly tolerance and a 
 genuine and gracious sympathy. 
 
 Of all the men I have known, he was the least of a 
 respecter of persons. He said of Chief Justice Green 
 what well describes himself: "He was an associate 
 of men, took part in their gatherings, their debates 
 and pleasures, and loved to be in their society. He 
 mingled among men, and thereby studied and 
 learned the customs of men. These customs, we all 
 know, form the customary or common law of the 
 people so long as these customs violate no customary 
 or declared law." It was in this spirit of perfect 
 charity, and touched with no ascetic gloom, that 
 Judge Arnold regarded his fellow-men and their ways. 
 Mr. Lowell, at a memorial meeting held in London, 
 said of Garfield: "I find the words coming back to 
 
MICHAEL ARNOLD. 37 
 
 my lips in spite of me, he was so human; " and they 
 natiH-ally suggest themselves when we think of 
 Judge Arnold. But the wide range of his sympathies 
 did not weaken or dull his appreciation of the asso- 
 ciations which constitute the chief pleasure of pro- 
 fessional life. Wherever lawyers were gathered 
 together, in Legal Clubs or Bar Associations or at 
 casual meetings, he was always a welcome guest, 
 honored and loved by all. 
 
 It is of the man himself that we shall most think 
 hereafter, and we shall be proud to remember how 
 he bore himself during the last months of his life. 
 When he had been prepared in the hospital for one 
 of the operations he was forced to undergo, he left 
 his sick bed to come to court to discharge a rule for 
 a new trial and pronounce the death sentence on 
 the murderers of Roy White. Long after he was 
 stricken with the malady which finally conquered 
 him, he refused to give up. He was never reconciled 
 to repiaining qtaiet; and after the surgeon's knife had 
 given some respite, he persisted in again attempting 
 to resume his duties. The serene coxirage and buoy- 
 ant cheerftdness with which he faced pain and death 
 and conditions worse than death, overcame for a 
 time the judgment of his friends, and led them to 
 hope after they well knew there was no hope. He 
 revealed something of himself in his eulogy upon 
 Judge Green, when he said: "There is a class of 
 the greatest and [the best,|and the effort J^amongst 
 
38 JijT jyiERjp^iAW. 
 
 those now in thi^ life is to put themselves in that 
 cjass. " He h^d sho-vyn his fidelity to this high ideal 
 by twenty years of faithful toil in the public serv- 
 ice, but it was his rare privilege to be able to prove 
 that he could successfully meet and endure a severer 
 test. 
 
 "Alive we would have changed his Ipt, 
 We would not change it now." 
 
 Robert von Moschzisker, Esq., said:— 
 
 As greatly as J feel the honor of speaking as the 
 representative of the Junior Bar on this occasion, 
 the pain of it all is infinitely greater. 
 
 I will not attempt to pass upon Michael Arnold as 
 a judge, a public officer, or a lawyer, for others, more 
 qualified by age and experience than I, have already 
 paid fitting tribute to his great worth in these walks 
 of life; but Michael Arnold, the man, I knew, and 
 knew well, and as year followed year my love and 
 regard for Michael Arnold, the man, even over- 
 shadowed my great admiration and respect for 
 Michael Arnold, the judge. For this man, during 
 the last five years of his life, gave to me the love 
 which a father might give to a son. 
 
 Michael Arnold had to a pre-eminent degree that 
 indescribable divine spark possessed only by a few 
 rare spirits, which radiates a strong htraian symr 
 pathy that irresistibly draws all men. 
 
 No one could know of this man and not feel ad- 
 miration for his talents and respect for his qualities. 
 
MICHAEL ARNOLD. 3g( 
 
 No one could know him without regard for his high 
 aims and purposes, and no oiie could know him as 
 you and I have known him without sincere and 
 earnest affection for the man hiinself. And the 
 secret of it all was his genuine simplicity and his 
 great love for his fellow-nian. 
 
 Here was a man born of the plain people, that stock 
 from which the best American manhood so often 
 springs, who, in the short span of his life, forged so 
 far to the front in the field which he chose for his 
 life-work, that to-day a million and a-half of people 
 stand with heads bowed, many of them, like us, 
 stricken down with genuine grief, because Michael 
 Arnold, the man, is dead. 
 
 Gentle, kind, and courteous in his social life,- 
 affectionate and sincere in his friendships, and loving 
 and tender in his attachments, this great soul went 
 through the world, and while in the world he was 
 ever of the world. His philosophy of life was that 
 God had placed us here to do a good full life's work, 
 but at the same time to keep in touch with all of 
 God's creatures, to enjoy the good things of the 
 world, to get, to bring, and to leave happiness, 
 freshness, and brightness on our way. Thus did 
 Michael Arnold, the man, Uve his life. 
 
 Nature, in the end, put great and terrible agony 
 in this man's way, and for two years he suffered 
 intense discomfort and pain ; yet withal, who of you 
 knew it? Did he cry out? Did he complain? Did 
 
4° 
 
 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 he make others miserable? No! But he suffered, 
 suffered, and suffered untold suffering, until it wore 
 this great, gentle, kindly man out; and God, in His 
 infinite wisdom, came and gave him rest. 
 
 Michael Arnold's body was laid in the grave 
 yesterday, but Michael Arnold's spirit is with us yet, 
 and will remain with us as long as a man lives who 
 knew him, for the love which he engendered in our 
 hearts can never die, and when we have all passed 
 to the great beyond, we will hand down to the genera- 
 tions to come the good, purifying, and wholesome 
 effect which this man's life, even unknown to us, has 
 had upon our own lives. 
 
 The greatest monument that Michael Arnold can 
 have is the void which he has left in the life of so 
 many others, and to account for this, after all is 
 said, the one thing which stands out beyond all 
 else, even greater than his tinquestioned talents, 
 his deep learning, his most uncommon common 
 sense, and his high integrity, was his absolute, 
 vinaffected, and genuine simplicity. Herein lay 
 the charm of Michael Arnold, the man, whom 
 we honored so greatly, loved so well, and shall 
 miss so much. 
 
 Michael Arnold died a man among men, a friend 
 among friends, with the moral strength of a giant 
 and the tender affections of a woman ; comparatively 
 poor in worldly wealth, yet magnificently rich in 
 character. 
 
MICHAEL ARNOLD. 41 
 
 The following letters were then read by the 
 Secretary : 
 
 The Superior Court op Pennsylvania. 
 
 Judges' Chambers. 
 
 Pittsburg, April 36, 1903. 
 Hon. Robert N. Willson: 
 
 My Dear Judge: — I received your kind communication 
 this noon, and wish you would express to the family of Judge 
 Arnold my deep regret that it will not be possible for me to 
 make arrangements to be present at the funeral to-morrow. 
 All of my brethren have gone to their homes, but I have no 
 hesitation in expressing for them appreciation of your cour- 
 tesy and regret that we cannot in a body attend the funeral. 
 Judge Arnold was most highly esteemed by all of us, and, if 
 it were possible, we should esteem it a privilege to pay this 
 tribute of respect to his memory. I, personally, have been 
 drawn very close to him during the past eight months. I 
 knew of the brave struggle he made, and while I admired be- 
 yond expression his unsurpassed courage, I was more espe- 
 cially moved by the sjrmpathy wHch he in many ways ex- 
 pressed for me in my incomparably less affliction. His was a 
 noble nature. He was as generous, unselfish, and sympa- 
 thetic as he was courageous. As long as my life lasts and my 
 faculties remain, I shall never forget that, when he must have 
 been suffering great pain, and must have been conscious that 
 he was walking in the valley of the shadow, he was as sym- 
 pathetically kind to me as if I had been his brother, and, 
 putting aside thought of himself, turned to give me encour- 
 agement. 
 
 As a judge he rendered distinguished service to the Com- 
 monwealth and achieved a high place in the estimation of the 
 Bench and the bar; but it falls to the lot of but few to be 
 cherished in the affections of so many as was he. 
 
 Sincerely yours, 
 (Signed) CHARLES E. RICE. 
 
42 in memoriam. 
 
 1423 North Broad Street. 
 
 April 25, 1903. 
 
 My Dear Sir: — I regret very much that I will not be able 
 to attend the meeting of the Bar with reference to the death 
 of Judge Arnold on Tuesday on account of sickness. Judge 
 Arnold and myself are the same age. We came to the Bar 
 about the same time. For years we had adjoining offices in 
 the same building, and then formed a friendship which has 
 continued ever since. His death is a great loss to his many 
 friends, the Bar and the community. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 (Signed) JOS. C. FERGUSON. 
 
 To Francis Shunk Brown. 
 
 Hon. Samuel Gustine Thompson then moved 
 that a committee of seven, consisting of the three 
 Secretaries and four others, be appointed by the 
 Chair to convey a copy of the resolutions to the 
 family of Judge Arnold. 
 
 Mrs. Carrie B. Kilgore then said: — 
 
 Mr. Chairman: — Before that motion is put, in 
 view of the reference that has been made to the 
 one dissenting opinion that Judge Arnold made 
 while a member of the Court of Common Pleas, 
 No. 4, 1 crave this opportunity to say that he subse- 
 quently became a fast friend of woman at the Bar, 
 and the women members of this Bar to-day mourn 
 Judge Arnold's loss as a judge upon whose judicial 
 integrity we could always rely. 
 
MICHAEL ARNOLD. 43 
 
 The motion made by Judge Thompson was then 
 carried; the Chair then said that the personnel^pi 
 the Committee would be announced later. 
 
 On motion, the meeting adjourned. 
 
MICHAEL ARNOLD. 45 
 
 THE LAWYERS' CLUB. 
 
 A SPECIAL meeting of the Lawyers' Club was held 
 at the Club House, 1326 Walnut Street, on Tuesday, 
 April 28th, 1903, to take action upon the death of 
 the Honorable Michael Arnold, a member of the 
 Club. 
 
 The meeting was called to order at 4.15 P. M. by 
 the President, Francis Shunk Brown, Esq. 
 
 Mr. Brown addressed the meeting as follows: — 
 
 I have called this special meeting of the Club 
 to take action upon the death of our friend and 
 fellow-member, the Honorable Michael Arnold. It 
 is most fitting that this Club should in some offi- 
 cial way pay its tribute of respect to his memory. 
 He was not only the friend of every member of this 
 Club, but he was at all times an active participant 
 in every movement which it has made towards the 
 promotion of the welfare of the profession, and 
 the improvement in the methods of the adminis- 
 tration of justice. Of all that has been said of Judge 
 Arnold that which has most appealed to me has been 
 the universal acclamation of his manliness as a 
 man and his strong personal friendships. Although 
 
46 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 he achieved a high position as judge, he never for- 
 got that he was a man or that he had been a prac- 
 ticing lawyer. He was a friend, not only to the 
 beginner who must creep before he can walk (and 
 to such a one Judge Arnold was always a most 
 helpful assistant), but he was also an adviser to 
 us all. He was a good citizen, a loyal friend, and an 
 upright judge, and it is an honor and pleasure to 
 me to call this Club together and to join with them 
 in this tribute of respect to his memory. 
 
 William H. Staake: — I would like to offer this 
 minute for the consideration of the members of the 
 
 Club:— 
 
 Minute. 
 
 The members of the Lawyers' Club of Philadelphia have 
 learned, with deep sorrow, of the death of their fellow-mem- 
 ber, the Honorable Michael Arnold, on the morning of Friday, 
 April 24th, 1903. 
 
 Judge Arnold was a universal favorite, a man respected, 
 admired, loved, and trusted, whose death will be deeply and 
 justly regretted by the Bench, the Bar, and by the entire 
 community. 
 
 All who admire unselfish devotion to duty and sincere and 
 hearty friendship, all who appreciate the characteristics which 
 make up a true, able, candid, and courageous personality, will 
 regret the untimely taking off of this able, impartial, faithful, 
 and brilliant judge. 
 
 Judge Arnold was careful, painstaking, and systematic, and 
 had those qualities of head and heart which fitted him ad- 
 mirably for judicial service, and which endeared him to his 
 associates and commanded the confidence, the respect, the 
 esteem, and affection of every member of the legal profession. 
 
 He embraced every opportunity for usefulness, and where 
 
MICHAEL ARNOLD. 47 
 
 he believed in a new order of things he had the courage of his 
 convictions and the energy and ability to maintain and de- 
 fend them. No one could ever doubt his sincerity, his cordial 
 and helpful sympathy, his high faculties and earnest purposes. 
 
 No occupant of the Bench was ever in closer touch with the 
 members of his profession than Judge Arnold. Between them 
 there ever existed the closest fraternity, for they knew him as 
 one possessing all those personal qualities which endeared him 
 to them as a lawyer, as a man, and as a friend. 
 
 During his long and painful illness, through which he ex- 
 hibited a manly and noble courage, which commanded uni- 
 versal admiration and evoked expressions of the most tender 
 and loving sympathy, many were the silent prayers offered 
 in his behalf, many were the longings to be able to assist him 
 in bearing the burden of his severe affliction. 
 
 When we saw him in the Temple of Justice for the last 
 time, he was surrounded by friends and flowers, and we heard 
 his loved voice in words of courageous and tender pathos be- 
 yond description. 
 
 And now he is at rest, and we can say of him, in the lan- 
 guage of his former colleague, the venerable President Judge 
 Thayer: "That although his star of life is lost to human 
 vision here, it has risen above another horizon and sheds its 
 soft and gentle radiance over other scenes, where there is no 
 more night and no more death." 
 
 To the family of Judge Arnold the members of the Law- 
 yers' Club of Philadelphia tender their earnest sympathy and 
 the assurance that they are mourning with them. 
 
 In offering this minute, Mr. Chairman, I would 
 like to give expression to one or two sentiments, 
 which, so far as my observation goes, express what 
 I understand to have been the character of Judge 
 Arnold. We all know it is said in Holy Writ that 
 the whole Decalogue can be summed up in those 
 two loves — the love of God and the love of man. 
 
48 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 No man ever understood the Decalogue better than 
 Judge Arnold, because surely he was a man that 
 loved his God, and he was constantly showing his 
 love to his fellow-men. Some one has said that 
 our happiness in this world depends upon the 
 affections that we are able to inspire. I have 
 often thought what a happy man Judge Arnold 
 must be, because do any of us know of a man 
 who really inspired more affection than he did? 
 As I have noted in the minute, the most of us 
 saw him the last time in life when in January he 
 received our greetings and when there was that 
 splendid ovation in the same room in which we 
 meet to-day, when the room seemed transformed 
 into a bower of floral beauty and promise. Some 
 of us again saw him only yesterday in death. The 
 flowers were still there, and, if I can be pardoned, 
 I would like to speak as an acrostic, because it is 
 said the speech of flowers is more eloquent than 
 the flowers of speech, and taking the words it will 
 be Faithful, Loving, Obedient, Watchful, Earnest, 
 Right-minded Servant. 
 
 Hon. Dimner Beeber said: — 
 
 In rising to second the resolutions offered by Mr. 
 Staake, I should say that this Club would be remiss 
 indeed if it did not pay its tribute to the memory 
 of our departed friend. When we consider what 
 this Club means, and the underlying purposes upon 
 
MICHAEL ARNOLD. 
 
 49 
 
 which it is based, and then recall to what a strange 
 and marked degree our departed friend was in- 
 spired by such purposes, it would be impossible to 
 conceive that this Club would not feel called upon 
 to give proper expression to its sense of loss. The 
 distinguished characteristic of Judge Arnold as a 
 man was his intense and active human simipathy. 
 For him it was impossible to look at human society 
 in classes. Though his intellect, doubtless, per- 
 ceived their existence, his conduct ignored them. 
 This is the distinguishing characteristic of a broad, 
 generous and elevated spirit. High and low, rich 
 and poor, powerful and weak, when they came in 
 contact with him were the same. The most highly 
 educated and widely cultivated felt no more at 
 home in the presence of Judge Arnold than did 
 the most humble member of the community. No 
 wrong inflicted by whomsoever it might be that did 
 not rouse his indignation. I can safely say from ex- 
 perience and from what I have been told by friends 
 who have been similarly situated, never has any 
 man gone to Judge Arnold for help, to draw from 
 that immense reservoir which he always kept for the 
 use of his friends, who did not meet with a prompt 
 and generous welcome. I can remember to-day, 
 the first time it was my happy lot to make his per- 
 sonal acquaintance, and in looking back over the 
 period from that time to this I am surprised to find 
 that I can recall no man whom I have ever known 
 
50 IN MBMORIAM. 
 
 with whom I got on such cordial terms so speedily 
 as I did with Judge Arnold, and I think it was largely- 
 due to the fact of the immense, the immeasurable 
 tact he had in his association with everybody. This 
 human S5rmpathy that I have spoken of reached 
 out in every direction and embraced every one. 
 
 I shall not attempt to praise him as a judge. 
 This meeting follows too closely upon his untimely 
 death, and this occasion is too solemn, to enable 
 one to hope that he can give a fair, complete, and 
 impartial judgment upon his whole judicial career. 
 I can safely say, however, that his friends will have 
 no just reason to fear any diminution of the popular 
 respect and admiration given him during his life 
 when the sober judgment of the future is passed 
 upon his life. In my own opinion, in his conduct 
 on the bench, in his trial of cases, in his listening 
 to arguments, he came as near being the ideal judge 
 as it has ever been my lot to appear before. I never 
 knew a man who could more readily tell what were 
 original common-law principles and the extent of 
 their modification by the growth of civilization, or 
 could more clearly see and grasp and more thor- 
 oughly comprehend the real point or points of any 
 case litigated before him than Judge Arnold. And 
 in the stress and storm that sometimes raged about 
 the trial of a case over which he was presiding, I 
 never knew any man who could administer words 
 that would still the rising storm and would mollify 
 
MICHAEL ARNOLD. • >.._^, 5 1 
 
 the angry feelings, so skillfully and so successfully, 
 as our departed friend. 
 
 In a practice now of more than twenty-five years, 
 I cannot recall the death of a single member of the 
 Bar or of a member of the judiciary whose loss was 
 felt by such a great variety of people in the com- 
 mttnity as feel the loss of Judge Arnold. As I have 
 said, there is no class of society in which he had not 
 a large acquaintance, and there is no class honored 
 by his friendship that does not grieve for its loss, 
 and that grief is aggravated by the fact that he was 
 carried off by his relentless disease while still in the 
 prime of life. Cut off at the early age of sixty-two, 
 with the ripe experience of two judicial terms, fit- 
 tingly rewarded by tmanimous election to a third, 
 with a mind that had been broadened and strength- 
 ened, with a conscience that had been elevated and 
 refined, the limits of his usefulness were almost be- 
 yond description, and when we stop to think that 
 the career of our departed friend is now closed, we 
 cannot help but feel that his death, although not 
 unexpected for some time, is one of the inexplicable 
 mysteries upon which the world often gazes. As 
 for myself, and I think I voice the sentiments of all 
 those who were personally acquainted with him, 
 whatever may be the number of my years, so long 
 as I retain my faculties, the time will never come 
 that I will not keenly feel and deeply regret his ill- 
 timed death. 
 
52 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 John H. Fow, Esq., said: — 
 
 Mr. Chairman and Fellow-Members of the Bar: 
 I rise in my place to-day to second those resolu- 
 tions of Mr. Staake, not for the purpose of paying 
 tribute to the honesty and the ability of Michael 
 Arnold as a member of our local judiciary, or to 
 utter any words of praise in connection with his 
 ability, his integrity, and his loyalty to his clients 
 and the members of our profession, but I do desire 
 to say a few words of him, as I best knew him, as 
 a personal friend, endowed with all those attributes 
 of character, which when cultivated, as in his case, 
 go to make a man esteemed by his fellow-men, as 
 evidenced by the great throng which gathered in 
 that sacred edifice yesterday to pay its respects to 
 God and to the mortal remains of our loved friend. 
 As the sweet voice of the singer rolled through the 
 building uttering the words: "I Know that My 
 Redeemer Liveth," I thought how applicable those 
 words were to the practical side of the life work of 
 Michael Arnold; for if there ever was one principle 
 governing our conduct toward our fellow-men, it 
 was observed in the every-day life of Michael Arnold, 
 and it was the Divine injunction: "Judge not and 
 ye shall not be judged; condemn not and ye shall 
 not be condemned; forgive and ye shall be forgiven," 
 or in other words, love your neighbor as you love 
 yourself Such a personal friend was Michael 
 Arnold — loving, kind and true; but so much has 
 
MICHAEL ARNOLD. 53 
 
 been said of these personal characteristics at the 
 Bar meeting to-day, at which so many of us were 
 present, that it would be superfluous for me to do 
 so again. 
 
 Michael Arnold was a personal friend of mine 
 for over a quarter of a century. Being a mem- 
 ber of the same political party, I had many oppor- 
 tunities of learning his feelings in reference to civil 
 life. He had no higher ambition than to deserve 
 a good name, rather than to possess one. He was 
 a strong party man when it came to holding together 
 ancient landmarks, but independent when the best 
 interests of society and the State were concerned. 
 I well remember sending hini a telegraphic dispatch, 
 asking him, at the request of the Philadelphia dele- 
 gation, to accept the nomination for Justice of the 
 Supreme Court, and his answer was: "I can best 
 serve in my present position." Had he accepted it, 
 he would have died the Chief Justice of Pennsyl- 
 vania. 
 
 It was stated by two speakers that he was 
 loyal to his convictions. I will add that he was 
 no less loyal in his friendships, and when once 
 formed, they were never broken. No man to-day 
 hves, in this or any other community, that ever 
 regretted that he was the personal friend of Michael 
 Arnold, and this was all brought about by a knowl- 
 edge of the ways of the common people, and to all 
 these qualities he added a broad and deep learning 
 
54 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 in the law. He was a kindly judge, a great lawyer, 
 and a warm personal friend. He had a high knowl- 
 edge of every-day human nature. Great judges 
 are bom, like orators and poets. Mr. Chairman, 
 did it ever strike you that the most striking and 
 strange thing in life is the permanence of trifles — 
 the small things to which we by our minds and 
 hands have given shape, and which we can, if we 
 will, crush out of shape and form, and resolve into 
 their primitive forms, outlive us. They lie upon the 
 table; they serve another master; they preach the 
 same lessons to coming generations. The face is 
 dead, but the canvas smiles from the wall ; the hand 
 is withered, but the pen lies in the tray for another, 
 let us hope that when that other comes, he will be 
 equal in our esteem, and our love, to Michael Arnold. 
 
 John C. Bell, Esq., said: — 
 
 Mr. Chairman: — It is said that out of the heart 
 the mouth speaketh, and so it must be with me on 
 this occasion. I came here to indicate simply by my 
 presence, my profound sympathy and thorough ac- 
 cord with this memorial meeting, called to do re- 
 spect and honor to one of the finest and noblest 
 characters of our generation. It was well said by 
 Mr. Dickson, this morning, that it is impossible, on 
 occasions of this kind, to escape reiteration. One 
 reason probably is that what is said is cor ad cor; 
 and when heart recalls to heart the virtues and 
 
MICHAEL ARNOLD. 55 
 
 lovable qualities of a departed friend, there is 
 neither need nor room for diversified thought or 
 rhetorical imagery. A common sorrow makes us 
 truly kin,' and as the last speaker suggested, we 
 one and all "feel what we can ne'er express, yet 
 cannot all conceal." 
 
 The closing paragraphs in the minute offered by 
 Mr. Staake call to mind that solemn truth from the 
 Book of Prayer: "In the midst of life we are in 
 death." Emphasizing that same thought, you re- 
 member how beautifully, touchingly, and effectively 
 Mr. Johnson also drew our attention at the Bar 
 meeting this forenoon to the fact that but a few 
 short months ago we all were assembled in that 
 same court room when Judge Arnold was the cjnio- 
 sure of all eyes ; when, after taking the oath of office 
 for his third consecutive term, he stood there, buoy- 
 ant and hopeful, impressed with the belief, as he 
 declared, that he would spend many happy years 
 in personal and professional intercourse with us all. 
 And yet, even then, he stood on the very brink of 
 the dark valley which lies in the shadow; the ter- 
 minus of all human existence. 
 
 " Oh blindness to the future kindly given. 
 That each may fill the circle marked by heaven." 
 
 He has gone to the great beyond, and among his 
 other admirable qualities, it is well to remember, 
 as Judge Willson said of him, that no soldier on the 
 battlefield or martvr at the stake ever exhibited 
 
56 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 more sublime and heroic courage than did he, as 
 he went down step by step into this valley of death. 
 Stirely, he must have been " sustained and soothed 
 by an unfaltering trust" in Almighty God. And 
 to-day, a few short months since that day of glad- 
 ness and hope, we have assembled to lay our gar- 
 lands on his bier and to commingle and crystallize 
 our tears in a monument to his memory. His 
 associates on the Bench have testified to his pre- 
 eminent qualities as a judge, to his purity of pur- 
 pose, his devotion to duty, his large learning, and 
 his magnificent common sense, each of which, as 
 Judge Thompson put it, is a sine qua non in that 
 essential combination of qualities which go to make 
 the good and great judge. And speaking for the 
 Bar, as you said. Sir, what other member, whether 
 in the rank and file with us or elevated to the Bench, 
 could have inspired such universal esteem, regard, 
 affection, and love as did Judge Arnold? And if we 
 stop and ask the reason for this — as well we may — 
 is it not manifest that it is Judge Arnold's great 
 moral qualities that will make him live forever in 
 our minds and hearts? For after all, it is the moral 
 qualities that insure enduring fame to any man. 
 It is not, therefore, because Judge Arnold was a 
 great judge, but over and above all else, because 
 he was also a good man, that his life will be an in- 
 spiration to you and to me. As a man, he possessed 
 pre-eminently those three essential attributes — 
 
MICHAEL ARNOLD. 57 
 
 honesty, cotirage, and fidelity to friends. And 
 truly his friends were legion. As was beautifully 
 said this morning, in a whole city of a million and 
 a half souls, there are few to-day who do not mourn 
 his loss. May it not, therefore, be truly said of him : — 
 
 "He was a man, take hita all in all, 
 We ne'er shall see his like again." 
 
 Wm, F. Johnson, Esq., said: — 
 
 Mr. Chairman: — I came here to be a silent par- 
 ticipant in the deliberations of the Club upon this 
 sad occasion, and oppressed with a feeling of sadness 
 I felt that it was more becoming in me to be silent. 
 I observe a similar feeling among the members as- 
 sembled and a disposition to hesitancy, as if they 
 were unequal to the occasion. Is not this the 
 sweetest tribute to our friend? We are told: 
 "There is a sorrow of the heart that knows no 
 tears — it petrifies." 
 
 But I must say a few words and ask your indul- 
 gence. The sociologist says: "Youth is the age 
 when friendships are formed — age makes acquaint- 
 ances." It is but too true; and the saddest part 
 of life is that he who lives the longest has the fewest 
 friends, the majority having crossed to the mys- 
 terious beyond. There is not wholly sadness, for 
 life then becomes reminiscent and is lovely from 
 the gentle recollections of those who have gone 
 before. 
 
S8 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 I came early in life among the lawyers, and my 
 remembrances span almost a half century. Par- 
 ticularly with those of my own age, and others who 
 afterwards joined our ranks at the Bar, I formed 
 friendships that have given endurance in this trou- 
 blous life. Our friend was my jtuiior, but I remem- 
 ber when he first came among us, when we were all 
 clustered about Sixth and Walnut Streets, and a 
 friendship was then formed between us which en- 
 dured. He was a modest young man, but showed 
 then a determined effort , to succeed; painstaking 
 and methodical, two qualities that did him service 
 to the end. 
 
 Our older members knew my fealty to the late 
 Judge Briggs. I was perhaps the nearest to him in 
 all his campaigns — held the purse strings, managed 
 his canvass, and did all that an active campaigner 
 then did. And then it meant work, ceaseless atten- 
 tion, anxiety and watchfulness, the thousand things 
 that enter not now mto the life of a loyal lieutenant 
 — shall we say thanks to the one man who has taken 
 all this off our hands? This is a digression, but it 
 brings me to the narration of an incident that may 
 at this hour be interesting. Owing to certain pecu- 
 liarities, not to say idiosyncrasies, of Judge Briggs 
 there developed strong opposition to his re-election. 
 Upon the Democratic side there was but one con- 
 ceded candidate, Henry S. Hagert, a profound 
 lawyer, earnest advocate, and acceptable gentleman. 
 
MICHAEL ARNOLD. SQ 
 
 In the course of a trial in the Quarter Sessions, where 
 he was indeed an able prosecutor of the pleas of the 
 Commonwealth, he had personally affronted me. 
 We met at the Seaside Hotel, at Atlantic City. It 
 was Sunday, the first day of April. Mr. and Mrs. 
 Arnold were there, Mr. Winship, John A. Clark, 
 and others, and after dinner we all assembled in 
 the general room, the gentlemen to smoke, and 
 naturally, the conversation drifted to the judicial 
 campaign then growing warmer. Ignoring a con- 
 sciousness that Mr. Hagert was a candidate, I turned 
 to Arnold and said: "Arnold, why don't you have 
 your friends announce you as a candidate? It is 
 not in the lot of a Democratic lawyer to have the 
 chance to be elected a judge in Philadelphia more 
 than once in his life, and this is yovir chance. If my 
 friend Briggs is to be defeated there is no Democrat 
 I would rather see elected than yourself." He 
 blushed in embarrassment, referred to the day, but 
 I assured him that with me it was no April Fool 
 joke. The remark put the "bee in his bonnet," 
 and with the aid of his Democratic friends, led by 
 that old Trojan, Richard Vaux, his fight was quickly 
 on. I remember meeting the Fifth Ward delega- 
 tion to his convention on the morning it was held, 
 who told me they were going to vote for Hagert. 
 I took them into a nearby hostelry and did some 
 missionary work, spiritually, and they were per- 
 suaded. Hagert lost those votes. Arnold was nom- 
 
6o IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 inated by two majority. Don't understand that I 
 think I nominated him ; far from it. I have no such 
 thought. He had his friends, inside his party, earn- 
 est, devoted, fighting friends without whom no labor 
 of an outsider could have accomplished much. It 
 is but the narration of a reminiscence of the cam- 
 paign that detracts nothing from the memory of 
 our friend. I know at the time there was the cry, 
 as of old, that no good covild come out of Nazareth; 
 yet I have always held that any well equipped 
 lawyer is fitted for the Bench, and to this in him 
 was added a strong practicability, an abhorrence 
 of cant, a knowledge of men and their ways, a 
 clearness of conception, and an immeasurable in- 
 tegrity that made him a safe and hence an emi- 
 nent judge. 
 
 This sadness which we all feel is a sense of personal 
 loss. If we analyze it we will find it ranged in self- 
 ishness and yet we cannot help its manifestation. 
 As we grow old Nature becomes very kind to us. We 
 realize the approach of the inevitable as inevitable 
 and death has no terrors. " It is as natural to die 
 as to be bom." Our friend has anticipated us but 
 a brief time. None of us wotdd have asked that he 
 should remain and linger in the agonies he endured 
 during his incurable illness. Let us as we place 
 the flowers of affection upon his bier remember his 
 great goodness, the sweetness of his temperament, 
 that he filled his calling with the encomium of the 
 
MICHAEL ARNOLD. 6 1 
 
 community and the adoration of his friends, and 
 with the closing of the sod say with the poet: — 
 
 " While summer days are long and lonely, 
 
 While autumn sunshine seems to weep, 
 While midnight hours are bleak, and only 
 
 The stars and clouds their vigils keep, 
 All gentle things that live shall moan thee 
 
 All fond regrets forever wake; 
 For earth is happier having known thee, 
 
 And heaven is sweeter for thy sake." 
 
 Robert H. Hinckley, Esq., said: — 
 We certainly feel indebted to our brother John- 
 son for explaining how it was that our departed 
 friend was brought into contact with so many of us 
 as a judge. I have known Judge Arnold for many 
 years. Mr. Johnson knew Judge Arnold possibly 
 a few years before I did, but I have in one of my 
 books a small piece of paper which I have always 
 kept as a souvenir of a fact. Hereafter it shall 
 always be kept as a memento of one whom I loved 
 and respected. 
 
 When I first met Michael Arnold he was the treas- 
 urer of the Law Academy. I had entered as a 
 student in the office of one of the most active prac- 
 titioners of his day, and I was directed to join the 
 Law Academy, and I went over and paid my two 
 dollars and received a receipt from Michael Arnold 
 as treastirer. That was my first contact with him. 
 As I look back upon the ntunber of years that have 
 passed, while he was my superior in age somewhat, 
 yet I have always felt that he was a delightful per- 
 
62 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 son to come in contact with, no matter in what ca- 
 pacity. We were fellow-students in the same law 
 class at the University. We practiced law, some- 
 times with and sometimes against each other, and 
 no man was more delighted than I was when he was 
 elected a judge. I cannot say that I ever had very 
 close friendship with him, but, as has been testified 
 to here, such was the sympathy of his nature that 
 no one could come in contact with him without 
 feeling refreshed; and as I sat here this afternoon 
 and listened to what has been said, there was but 
 one simile that suggested itself to my mind, and 
 that was this: You all know how refreshing it is, 
 when we are weary and tired and thirsty, to taste 
 of a cold draught of water. Now, when I look back 
 upon the past of my life with Judge Arnold, as a 
 law student, as a practitioner, as a judge, and as a 
 member of this Club, I can but feel that every time 
 I came in contact with him, it was with that re- 
 freshing, inspiring sensation that you have when, 
 weary from traveling, you take a drink of water. 
 He had that with him which sparkled; it came out 
 spontaneously; there was no effort; he never tried 
 to impose himself upon any one, but, as I have al- 
 ready testified here, and I feel that there are men 
 here who can indorse what I say, that no one ever 
 came in contact with Michael Arnold without feel- 
 ing that he was a man who inspired confidence, and 
 I feel svire that we can never be called upon to look 
 
MICHAEL ARNOLD. 63 
 
 with more sorrow upon a picture draped, as upon 
 that one; that none of us can ever come to a meet- 
 ing to speak of a better, dearer man than our 
 departed brother. 
 
 CoL. John I. Rogers said: — 
 
 Mr. Chairman : — So many of the reminiscences of 
 the older members, to which I have just Hstened, 
 seemed so famihar that while I cannot lay claim to 
 any of the merits or laurels of seniority, yet I feel 
 that I must reluctantly admit that I have long ago 
 ceased to belong to the Jtmior Bar. I studied law 
 with Charles IngersoU, whose office was at 512 Wal- 
 nut Street. During the last year of my student days 
 I became acquainted with Michael Arnold, who was 
 then associated either in a professional sense or occu- 
 pied joint offices at 520 Walnut Street with the Hon- 
 orable Richard Vaux. As Mr. IngersoU was a close 
 friend of Mr. Vatix's, I very frequently delivered 
 letters and other writings at the latter' s office, and 
 thus got intimately acquainted with Michael Ar- 
 nold. Although he had for years been practicing 
 his profession he took the deepest interest in my 
 struggles with, and studies of, Blackstone. He 
 encouraged my skepticism, or heresy, as to the infal- 
 libility of the Blackstonian dicta, especially as to 
 the prerogatives of the King, and the time-serving 
 toadying palHation and defense of the tyrannical 
 English criminal law. 
 
64 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 Together we studied Lingard's History of Eng- 
 land, Hallam's Middle Ages and Montesquieu's Es- 
 prit du Loix, and, as a result, refuted Blackstone's 
 boast as to the common law being the sole basis of 
 our jtirisprudence. We demonstrated, at least to 
 our own satisfaction, that despite the unsurpassable 
 codification of the lex scripta et non scripta, and the 
 concise and brilliant rhetoric of the great com- 
 mentator, his specious argument in favor of the 
 common law was a usurpation of the source of 
 authority and authorship of the jus civile, or the 
 Roman civil law, from which all that is worth pres- 
 ervation in the modem jurisprudence of every civ- 
 ilized State, took root and growth. 
 
 The Code Justinian held first place in our affec- 
 tions, and while opportunities for elaboration and 
 profound investigation were limited, and in time 
 eliminated, we often, in later days, referred to the 
 subject as one worthy of every student of the law, 
 and regretted that the young men of the present 
 day did not delve more frequently into the most 
 prolific and richest literature of our profession. 
 
 In my later days, I confess to neglect of my op- 
 portunities in this direction, which the cares of busi- 
 ness cannot excuse, although lessening the time 
 for leisurely study. Whatever trend my mind took 
 in such study; whatever pleasure and instruction I 
 gained therefrom, was due to my old friend long 
 before judicial honors were dreamed of and when 
 
MICHAEL ARNOLD. 65 
 
 his intimates called him " Mike " Arnold. Time goes 
 back thirty-four or five years in these reminiscences 
 and from then itntil now ours, in common with many 
 of the older of my auditors, has been a friendship 
 of cloudless svinshine. 
 
 What is that intangible, indescribable feeling 
 that rises up within us, that flushes our cheeks and 
 thrills us when we hear or see something patriotic 
 or sentimental? We know not where it comes from; 
 we do not know why it is here, or what part of our 
 being it springs from. It is the best evidence, how- 
 ever, of the existence of our immortal souls. What- 
 ever it is, it has always affected me, and I presume 
 most of the others here present, with a sort of 
 magnetism, with that indefinable feeling — perhaps 
 I should call it supematuralism — ^when in Judge 
 Arnold's presence. When I attended that induction 
 into the third term of his judicial career on the first 
 Monday of last January, already referred to, al- 
 though going early, I could barely gain admittance 
 to the room, so crowded with the legion of his 
 friends, and when our fellow-member, the Nestor 
 of our Bar, Samuel Dickson, delivered his congrat- 
 ulatory address, I thought and so said to Judge 
 Arnold half an hour later in the corridor, that Mr. 
 Dickson didn't go far enough. 
 
 His chief theme was, that a custom had grown 
 up in this commtinity — a custom honored by an 
 observance with scarcely a breach — that when a 
 
66 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 judicial servant had performed all the duties of his 
 high office with fidelity and integrity, he should be 
 renominated and re-elected irrespective of his politi- 
 cal predilections. Certainly this laudable unwritten 
 law most worthily applied to Judge Arnold, but it 
 didn't go far enough, nor explain the unprecedented 
 assemblage on that occasion. Far beyond his quali- 
 fications as judge, he had many other attributes, 
 many other credentials, the paramount of which 
 was, as Mr. Staake and the other speakers have al- 
 luded to — love — Godlike love for man, the great- 
 est faculty that any one can possess, far outshining 
 place, power, and fame ; the greatest heritage he can 
 bequeath his children ; the greatest memorial he can 
 leave to his friends. 
 
 Mr. Staake offered the following resolutions : — 
 
 Resolved, That a copy of the minute adopted at this meet- 
 ing be properly engrossed and be presented to the family of 
 Judge Arnold. 
 
 Resolved, That a committee of seven members of the Club 
 be appointed by the President to present the action of this 
 meeting to the family of Judge Arnold. 
 
 Adjournment. 
 
m 
 
 -ffiiti i-iii