SOME FAMOUS CROSS-EXAMINERS
been called "the Prince of the American Bar." He was a gentleman of high scholarship and fine literary tastes. His manner in the trial of a case has been described by some one as "all head, nose, voice, and forefinger." He was five feet seven inches tall, 'thin and slender, "with a face like parchment."
Mr. Joseph H. Choate once told me he considered that he owed his own success in court to the nine years during which he acted as Mr. Evarts's junior in the trial of cases. No one but Mr. Choate himself would have said this. His transcendent genius as an advocate could not have been acquired from any tutelage under Mr. Evarts. When Mr. Choate accepted his appointment as Ambassador to the Court of St. James, he retired from the practice of the law; and it is therefore permissible to comment upon his marvellous talents as a jury lawyer. He was not only easily the leading trial lawyer of the New York Bar, but was by many thought to be the representative lawyer of the American Bar. Surely no man of his time was more successful in winning juries. His career was one uninterrupted success. Not that he shone especially in any particular one of the duties of the trial lawyer, but he was preeminent in the quality of his humor and keenness of satire. His whole conduct of a case, his treatment of witnesses, of the court, of opposing counsel, and especially of the jury, were so irresistibly fascinating and winning that he carried everything before him. One would emerge from a three weeks' contest
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