; and when, on the first of January, 1874, his term
expired and he returned to his legal practice, it was with a larger
measure of popular esteem than he had ever before enjoyed.

In resuming professional labor he formed a partnership with his friend
and former antagonist, Lyman K. Bass, Mr. Wilson S. Bissel also becoming
a member of the firm. Now thirty-seven years of age, with mental powers
thoroughly developed, and a capacity for labor far greater than that
with which most men are favored, he was eminently well equipped for
substantial achievement in his chosen field of effort; and it is not too
much to say that, in the next seven years, during which he gave
uninterrupted attention to the work, he accomplished as much in the way
of honest professional triumph as any lawyer in Western New York. He
sought no mere personal distinction, but put his heart into his work,
and practically made his clients' interests his own. His judgment was
sound, his industry indefatigable, his integrity unquestioned. He was
eminently well fitted for judicial service, but could never be induced
to put himself in the way of preferment in that direction. He was
always the "working member" of the firms with which he was connected. As
an advocate, he made no pretensions to brilliancy; but in the
preparation of cases, and in the cogent statement of principles
involved, as well as in the effective presentation of pertinent facts,
he found no superiors, and few equals, among his associates at the bar.

Caring nothing for the pecuniary rewards of labor, beyond the provision
for his own modest wants and the comfort of those, in a measure,
depending upon his assistance, Mr. Cleveland has accumulated no large
fortune; although, with the opportunities at hand, had he made wealth
his object, he might have secured it. On the other hand, he has
befriended many a poor client to his own cost; and, while failing in
many cases to collect the fees which were his due, he has contributed to
public and private charities with a liberal, but unostentatious hand.
Though he has never posed as a "working-men's candidate" for official
preferment, the laboring people of his city and section have long known
him as the true and sympathetic friend of every honest son and daughter
of toil.

When, in the autumn of 1881, the people of the great city of Buffalo,
the third in the Empire State in population, and the second in
commercial importance, tired of the corruption, th