years the Judges of the Supreme
Court were annually elected by the Legislature, a system which,
I believe, has worked on the whole to their satisfaction.
They have had an able judiciary. It is said that old Chief
Justice Shaw was one evening discoursing at a meeting of the
Boston Law Club to an eminent Vermont Judge, who was a guest.
He said, "With your brief judicial tenure, sir--" The Vermonter
interrupted him and said, "Why, our tenure of office is longer
than yours." "What do you mean?" said the Chief Justice.
"I do not understand you." "Why," was the reply, "our Judges
are elected for a year, and you are appointed as long as you
behave yourselves."

Chief Justice Shaw is said to have been a very dull child.
The earliest indication of his gift of the masterly and unerring
judgment which discerned the truth and reason of things was,
however, noticed when he was a very small boy. His mother
one day had a company at tea. Some hot buttered toast was
on the table. When it was passed to little Lemuel he pulled
out the bottom slice, which was kept hot by the hot plate
beneath and the pile of toast above. His mother reproached
him quite sharply. "You must not do that, Lemuel. Suppose
everybody were to do that?" "Then everybody would get a bottom
slice," answered the wise urchin.

Judge Shaw had the sturdy spirit and temper of the old seafaring
people of Cape Cod, among whom he was born and bred. He was
fond of stories of the sea and of ships. He liked to hear
of bold and adventurous voyages. Judge Gray used to tell
the story of the old Chief's standing with his back to the
fire, with his coat-tails under his arm, in the Judges' room
at the Suffolk Court-House, one cold winter morning, when
the news of the fate of Sir John Franklin's expedition or
the story of some other Arctic tragedy had just reached Boston
and was in the morning papers.

"I hope, sir," said Judge Bigelow, "that there will be no
more of these voyages to discover the North Pole."

"I want 'em to find that open Polar sea, sir," said Shaw.

"But don't you think," said Judge Bigelow, "that it is too
bad to risk so many human lives, and to compel the sailors
to encounter the terrible suffering and danger of these Arctic
voyages?"

"I think they'll find it yet, sir," was all the reply Bigelow
could get.

Judge Shaw, in his latter days, was reverenced by the people
of Massachusetts as if he were a demi-god. But in his native
county of