1867 and after 199

Electoral Commission at Washington in the winter
of 1876 and 1877, several law students who had
gone from Baltimore to hear the distinguished
lawyers engaged in the case were told by Mr. Jus-
tice David Davis of the United States Supreme
Court, whom they happened to meet, that they
would be spending their time more profitably if
they returned to the Baltimore courts, where from
Mr. Wallis, Mr. I. Nevitt Steele and one or two
others they would hear abler arguments than they
could hear anywhere else. And by the working of
the same process the talents of some Maryland
judges may have been likewise overlooked. They
may have suffered somewhat from a lack of sacred
bards. Maryland has had few writers, and hardly
any to celebrate the talents of its judges elsewhere.

But if it be assumed that there has been no judge
on the Court of Appeals whose opinions even if
widely known would have given him wide praise,
it remains true that for nearly a hundred and
fifty years, if we go no further back, a succession
of mortal men on this court sitting in judgment
on the controversies of the people of their com-
munity, have worked to the general satisfaction
and content of those people, and left them respect-
ing the men and the institution; and in that they
have met the greater test of success in the adminis-
tration of justice. Whatever the future of the
court may be, whether being adapted to changes
which must occur in the needs for judicature it is
to endure in usefulness for a long time to come,
or whether it is soon to be superseded by some
different tribunal or tribunals, it has already had
a long career as an institution of prime importance