180 court of appeals of maryland

Judge James McSherry, Chief Judge from 1896 to
1907; and one of the cherished subjects of profes-
sional talk during many years has been a com-
parison of Judges Alvey, Miller and McSherry.
Judge Robinson of a type differing somewhat from
that of all these, is being brought into the discus-
sion more recently. They were all judges of high
ability, and opinions of theirs are taken as having
somewhat more than ordinary authority. Judges
Alvey, Miller and McSherry wrote opinions of a
style now apparently passing, opinions, that is, in
which the reasoning is spread out at length with
copious elucidation and illustration, while Judge
Robinson anticipated the more modern style, giv-
ing little more than the conclusions with brief
statements of the arguments and authorities lead-
ing to them. The first three judges mentioned,
therefore, laid their work more open to apprecia-
tion and comparison.

There were interesting differences in their
methods. Both Judge Alvey and Judge Miller
expended much labor on their opinions, and they
excelled by the amount and quality of their reflec-
tion, perhaps, as much as by original intellectual
capacity. Judge Alvey was an intense workman,
and sometimes shut himself off from communica-
tion and spent hours reading and walking
the floor until he had threshed out his ideas
clearly. He took pride in the lucidity of his
opinions, and regularly wrote three times be-
fore delivering the product. Some of his con-
temporaries thought that in a few instances he
suffered the consequences likely to attend upon
protracted study, that he sometimes followed his