Justice Field, delivering the opinion of the court, considered only the alleged error of the trial court, in denying the motion for the removal of the case to the federal court, saying that if this application should have been granted, the subsequent proceedings were without validity. The court held that since the suit was between residents of different states, and the necessary affidavit had been filed the case should have been removed. In 1867 a federal statute had been passed to relieve against the miscarriage of justice resulting from the bitter enmities arising from the war. This statute provided for the removal of a case upon affidavit being filed, setting up that justice could not be obtained by reason of local prejudice. The court held this statute applied, even though the suit involved purely matters of probate, as to which, ordinarily, federal courts have no jurisdiction. For this error, the judgment was reversed; Justices Bradley, Swayne, and Waite dissenting.

Upon the cause being remanded, it was removed to the federal Circuit Court, and tried before Judge Billings, at the April Term 1877. The argument occupied seventeen full days. He held1 that so long as it was proved that the will was dated in July, and bore a date, that it was unnecessary that the exact day of the month be proved, that the fact of the execution of the will was satisfactorily established; and that the presumption of Clark's having destroyed the will, because last seen in his possession, should not prevail because such presumption was rebutted by the testimony of Boisfontaine, who said he was with Clark during the last two days of his life, and never left his bedside and that during his last hours Clark spoke of this will and of the gratification it gave him, that by means of it he had provided for his daughter. He entered a decree against the petitioners.

And now, after forty-three years of continuous litigation, Myra Clark Gaines had finally succeeded in established herself as the legitimate daughter of Daniel Clark, entitled as legatee and devisee to take his property under the will of July 13, 1813. But this decision of 1877 did not bring the litigation to a conclusion. For thirteen years thereafter, Mrs. Gaines and after her death, her personal representatives, struggled to recover lands, and the rents and profits thereof, from various parties. A brief reference to these suits will suffice.

One of these cases was against the City of New Orleans for rents and interest on property which was originally worth $200.16 The city had purchased it in 1834, and built a drainage building on

15. Fuentes v. Gaines, 9 Fed. Cas. 1042.
16. Gaines v. New Orleans, 15 Wallace 624.

it. Mrs. Gaines, recovered its rental value from 1834, amounting to $84,800, plus interest of $72,800, less certain amounts paid out for repairs, leaving her net recovery $125,000.17

The case of New Orleans v. Gaines, Admr.18 decided in 1888, was a suit brought against the city for the rents and profits of four square blocks of land. The decision of the lower court was in Mrs. Gaines' favor, and she recovered judgment for almost two million dollars. The suit was for the rents and profits, not only chargeable against New Orleans, but also those chargeable against its grantees. Two of these grantees were Agnelly and Monsseaux, against whom Mrs. Gaines had secured judgments amounting to $576,707. She claimed the right to sue the City of New Orleans for this sum, upon the theory of subrogation, the City of New Orleans having warranted the title in its deeds to Monsseaux and Agnelly. The court upheld this contention. As to the balance of the decree, amounting to $1,348,959, the court reversed the case. This amount had been arrived at by computing interest upon the value of vacant lands from which the city had actually received no rents or income. The lower court based this part of its decree on the principle that one buying property in bad faith must account not only for rents and income actually received, but also for what the property might have been made to produce. Justice Bradley, writing the opinion, says that this is not the true rule, as applied to this case. He said:

"There are degrees of bad faith. There are some possessors, who, without any title at all, pertinaciously keep the true and known owner out of possession. They may be called knavish possessors. There are others who take a conveyance and go into possession in entire ignorance of any defect in their title, though they are technically possessors in bad faith, because by proper inquiry they might have discovered the defect. Such possessors certainly cannot be placed on the same level with the knavish and fraudulent possessors, of whom we have just spoken."

Justice Bradley indicated that, had this case been before him in its entirety, he might have decided it against Mrs. Gaines. He said:

"Although bound by the decisions that have been made by the court in the matter, we cannot say, and no one can say, that there was not much evidence of a very strong character in favor of a contrary conclusion."

It appearing that Mrs. Gaines had received payment of a part of the judgments against Agnelly and Monsseaux, the court directed that upon remandment of the case, the amount so received be determined and the same credited on the amount due from the city.

17. For other cases not commented on herein see Davis v. Gaines, 104 U. S. 386, Gaines v. Miller, 111 U. S. 395.

18. 131 U. S. 191.

Upon remandment, it was found Mrs. Gaines had received $15,000 on said judgments, and this reduced her judgment against the city to $561,707. Both parties appealing from this judgment, the case was again brought to the Supreme Court, where in an opinion by Justice Bradley, rendered at the October Term, 1890, seventy-seven years after the death of Daniel Clark, the court upheld this reduction of $15,000 in the judgment.19 However, the Gaines estate got more than even, for the court directed that $34,000, being the costs of the Agnelly and Monsseaux judgments, be added to the judgment against the city.

So far as I can learn, this decision ended the litigation. It is certain that it was the last case in the reports. Beginning in 1834, the case in one form or another was continuously in one court or another, and frequently in several courts simultaneously, until 1890, a period of fifty-six years.

This discussion is intended only to touch the high spots. There are many other cases in the Louisiana Annual, the Federal Reporter, and in the Federal Cases. If all the opinions in the cases to which Mrs. Gaines and her estate were parties, growing out of her efforts to secure her rights in the estate of her father, were printed together, they would fill several ordinary sized reports. But Mrs. Gaines did not live to see the finish, for she died at New Orleans, January 9, 1885, at the age of seventy-nine years.

One wonders how Mrs. Gaines was able to finance this enormous litigation. There is very little to be learned about the litigation or the interested parties outside the law reports. I am unable to say whether Whitney or General Gaines were men with fortunes. Certain it is that in 1841 General Gaines and his wife toured the country as lecturers, he addressing himself to the subject "A New Plan of National Defense," and she to the subject "The Horrors of War," the pro and con of "preparedness," as it were.

The case was in the United States Supreme Court sixteen times. Of the fifty-three justices who sat in that court from the organization of our government down to 1890, thirty-four or nearly twothirds took part in one or more of the decisions of this case in that court. Many noted counsel took part in the case, among others Reverdy Johnson, Jeremiah S. Black, Thomas J. Semmes and Daniel Webster.

I have been unable to ascertain the total amount of property recovered as the result of this litigation. It is said that in 1874 Mrs. Gaines had recovered six million dollars in property and cash.

19. New Orleans v. Gaines Adm., 138 U. S. 595.

This ends the story of a litigation which stands out conspicuous because of the prominence of the central figures, and which, by reason of the romantic events involved, the amount and value of the property at stake, the great length of time it was in the courts, the complexity of the almost numberless points involved and the intensity with which it was contested on both sides, stands unparalleled in the annals of court trials in this country or elsewhere.

It is fitting that in conclusion, I should say just a word about the last will of Myra Clark Gaines. The trials, tribulation, and delay which characterized the probating of Daniel Clark's last will, were destined to accompany the probate of the will of his daughter.

She died January 9, 1885, leaving children and grandchildren by both Whitney and General Gaines. A few days after her death, two wills were presented for probate at New Orleans, an olographic will dated January 8, 1885, and one signed by a cross and witnessed, dated January 5, 1885. Both wills were contested. The Probate Court decided the olographic or Evans will, as it was called, was a forgery and denied probate to the other because not executed and witnessed in the manner required of non-resident testators.

The story told by Mrs. Evans was that the day before Mrs. Gaines' death, she went to call on her, but was denied admittance. She went to her lawyer's office and later determined to try again. She passed by the house three times, uncertain whether to ask admittance. Upon her final return, a woman shabbily dressed and heavily veiled, standing on the lowest of the front steps, handed her an envelope done up in a handkerchief, saying it was from Mrs. Gaines. She returned to her home, and, opening it, found it to be the will of Mrs. Gaines in her own handwriting, and dated January 8, 1885. By this will, Mrs. Gaines left some real estate to Julietta Perkins, the mother of Mrs. Evans. The residue of her estate she left one-third to Mrs. Evans, and two-thirds to her own grandchildren.

These two wills were also presented to the Surrogate Court in New York, which was Mrs. Gaines' domicile at the time of her death. Belva A. Lockwood, of blessed memory, was of counsel for Mrs. Evans. This court also decided the Evans will to be a forgery, but admitted the other will to probate. Of course, both the New Orleans and the New York decisions were appealed from. The case was in the Louisiana Supreme Court six times, and in the Supreme Court, Appellate Division of New York once, and was finally decided adversely to the Evans will, by the New York Court of Appeals in the year 1897.

PRACTITIONER'S NEED

BY EDWARD R. BRANSON 1

When a man has been admitted to the bar, is he always equipped for his work? Does he understand practice, as well as theory? Is he prepared to undertake the duties of a practitioner, or is he merely a legally trained student who must go through still another novitiate? Admittedly, there has been a notable improvement in the methods and standards of legal instruction. Admittedly, the law schools of the better class throughout the country have made progress-substantial progress-in recent years, but may it not be said that there is still much to be desired?

If the young man, upon his admission, be illy equipped for his duties if the student atmosphere still clings to him and he cannot become the practical man-it is not always the law school's fault. The fault may be within himself. Nor may it be said that any general rule is deducible from the mere fact that there are instances of this character. The only thing apparent is that, irrespective of where the fault lies, many such instances may be found.

The older practitioner presents a solution for you, if you are willing to accept it. He will tell you, for example, that skill in drawing forms, especially forms in pleading, will come with experience and only with experience. Does this mean, then, that the young lawyer must wait for the years to give him this experience, or does it mean that he must associate himself with an older man or depend on the older man for guidance and instruction before he can file an action at law or a suit in equity? The older lawyer will inform you that it does not do to depend on a form book. He himself, he tells you, depends on his head. He can prepare the necessary form without looking into a form book. Granted that this may be so. But can he prepare any kind of a form without consulting a form book? Could he prepare a form, "out of his own head," when he was starting to practice?

The conclusion one is forced to reach is this: The form book has its place-it is useful-but, whether the practitioner be the possessor of such a working-tool, or not, he must first understand the science of drawing a legal form. If he does have an intimate knowledge of the science of preparing a pleading, or a form in conveyancing or an instruction to the jury, he may be in a better

1. Of the Springfield, Illinois, Bar.