REPORT OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE.

To the Virginia State Bar Association:

In accordance with the requirement of By-Law XII, Clause 5, your committee submit the following report:

The growth of the Association continues to answer fully the hopes and expectations born of the last three years' experience. A growing membership and a growing attendance at your annual meetings attest conclusively the increasing interest in and influence of this body, and both give promise of a great and beneficent work in the future. An organization 435 strong, composed of the men whose names adorn your roll of membership, must wield an influence for good, which may be all the more potent and persuasive because silent and unobtrusive.

Your committee, while not desiring to check the rapid growth in numbers of the Association, deem it proper to suggest that in the present stage of its development, it may be less a matter of concern to secure additional members than to see that only the highest in aim and in character may enter it.

Since your last meeting, your former faithful and efficient Secretary and Treasurer, the Hon. James C. Lamb, has had the distinguished honor of being elected to the Judgeship of the Chancery Court of Richmond. By his elevation he became, as by his services to you he richly merited, an honorary member of this Association. The vacancy thus occasioned in the office of Secretary and Treasurer, your committee filled, as they were empowered and directed to do, by the appointment of Mr. Jackson Guy, of Richmond.

Your committee have no suggestions to make of alterations in or additions to your Constitution and By-Laws, except to call attention to a change in Article V of the Constitution rendered necessary by the creation, at the last session of the General Assembly, of an additional (the eighteenth) judicial circuit. A substitution of the word "eighteen" for "seventeen " wherever it occurs in that article, it is believed, is the only change needed. An amendment to your Constitution effecting this change is herewith submitted.

Respectfully submitted.

F. H. McGUIRE,
Chairman.

PROPOSED AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION.

In pursuance of Article XII of the Constitution notice is hereby given of the following proposed amendment to the Constitution:

That Article V of the Constitution be amended by substituting the word "eighteen" in lieu of the word "seventeen" wherever the latter occurs in said article.

F. H. McGUIRE,
JAMES C. LAMB,
JACKSON GUY,
ALEX. HAMILTON,
CHAS. M. BLACKFORD.

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON ADMISSIONS.

To the Virginia State Bar Association:

The Committee on Admissions beg leave to submit the following report, as required by the Constitution and By-Laws of the Association:

The committee met for the purpose of organizing on July 30th, 1891, at the White Sulphur Springs; and John H. Lewis, of Lynchburg, was elected chairman, and Roy B. Smith, of Roanoke, secretary; when, by proper resolution, the committee adjourned subject to the call of the chairman.

There was a called meeting held in the city of Richmond on the 8th of April, 1892, at which the following named gentlemen were duly elected members of the Association, viz. :

A. W. Armstrong, Alexandria; Carter Braxton, E. S. Sublett, Richard S. Ker, Charles Curry, R. S. Turk, Fitzhugh Elder, John N. Opie, Hugh C. Braxton, Roger B. Atkinson, R. E. R. Nelson, and Joseph A. Glasgow, of Staunton; Archer Anderson, Jr., George Wayne Anderson, B. T. Barret, A. Emmet Chalmers, and Stonewall J. Doswell, of Richmond; E. D. Newman and M. B. Wunder, Woodstock; John C. Blair, Wytheville; A. D. Watkins, Farmville; S. C. Redd, Hanover county; B. F. Buchanan, Marion; William Lunsford and A. E. King, of Roanoke; B. O. James and R. D. James, of Goochland; Madison H. Haythe and John G. Haythe, of Buena Vista; and Charles F. Collier, of Petersburg.

During the vacation of the committee the following named gentlemen were elected: William L. Folk, of Smithfield; John W. Stephenson, of Warm Springs; and Hugh A. White, of Buena Vista.

At a meeting of the committee held at Old Point on July 11th, 1892, the following gentlemen were duly elected: S. L. Hubard,

of Norfolk; E. M. Pendleton, of Lexington; William R. Duke and W. D. Dabney, of Charlottesville; William Gordon Robertson, C. A. McHugh, D. S. Good, and R. Randolph Hicks, of Roanoke; Roger Gregory, Willoughby Newton, Jr., Raleigh C. Minor, E. B. Thomason, Frank M. Woon, Edmund Waddill, Jr., G. Carlton Jackson, and William A. Moncure, of Richmond; and William B. Clarke, of Surry Court-house.

At a meeting held July 12th, 1892, the following gentlemen were duly elected: J. T. McAllister, Warm Springs, and F. C. Moon, Scottsville.

At a meeting held July 13th, 1892, the following gentlemen were elected: Conway Whittle Sams, Norfolk; F. B. Hutton, Abingdon; William E. Burns, Lebanon; W. A. Fentress, Portsmouth; S. L. Farrar, Amelia Court-house; T. J. Barham, Newport News; W. M. Pierce, Christiansburg; James D. Johnston, Roanoke; and R. R. Fauntleroy, of Richmond-making a total of sixty-one members duly elected by your committee.

The names of the following applicants have been handed to the committee, but from the lack of the endorsement of the member of the committee from the respective circuits of said applicants, the committee have been unable to act upon said applications: R. B. Berkeley, Pulaski, and A. C. Peachy, Williamsburg. The committee would recommend that these gentlemen, if present, be extended the privileges of the present session of the Association.

ROY B. SMITH,

Secretary.

JOHN H. LEWIS,
Chairman.

REPORT OF SPECIAL COMMITTEE WITH RESPECT
TO GRAVE OF CHANCELLOR WYTHE.

SUBMITTED AT THE FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING, JULY 12, 1892.

Whereas the grave of Chancellor George Wythe, in the church-yard of St. John's church, Richmond, Va., is unmarked,

Resolved, That the President of this Association appoint a committee of three, who shall ascertain as nearly as possible the locality of the said grave and report to this body at its next session, and at the same time report what will be the cost of a suitable stone to be placed at or near said grave.-Minutes, 1891, p. 26.

Referred to a Special Committee, consisting of Messrs. W. W. Henry, of Richmond; R. G. H. Kean, of Lynchburg, and R. M. Hughes, of Norfolk.

To the Virginia State Bar Association:

Your committee, who were charged with the duty of "ascertaining as nearly as possible the exact locality of the grave of Chancellor George Wythe," and "what will be the cost of a suitable stone to be placed at or near said grave," respectfully report : It appears quite certain that Chancellor Wythe was buried in St. John's church-yard, Church Hill, in the city of Richmond.

In "The Two Parsons," written and published some years ago by the late George Wythe Munford, the following passage occurs (pp. 429-430) :

"There is no monument or other mark to designate the spot where his remains repose; but it is believed he was buried on the west side of the church, near the wall of that building.

"There were at that time only two newspapers published in the city-the Virginia Argus and the Richmond Enquirer-and they were published only weekly. They did not appear until the 10th of June. Each of them published the action of the Executive Council, which, though it was Sunday, nday. met on that day, and entered the following order:

"COUNCIL CHAMBER, June 8th, 1806.

""Preparatory to the interment of George Wythe, late Judge of the High Court of Chancery for the Richmond district, a funeral oration will be delivered at the Capitol, in the hall of the House of Delegates, to begin precisely at 4 o'clock P. M. on to-morrow. After which the procession will commence in the following order: The clergymen and orator of the day; coffin, with the word 'corpse' on the lid; physicians; the executor and relations of the deceased; the judges; members of the bar; officers of the high court of chancery; the governor and council; other officers of government; the mayor, aldermen and common council of Richmond; citizens.'"

The Enquirer, after speaking of the crowd which attended at the Capitol, to hear the oration of Mr. William Munford, a member of the Council, appointed for that function, proceeds as follows:

"The procession set out towards the church. It is no disparagement to the virtues of the living to assert, that there is not perhaps another man in Virginia that the same solemn procession would have attended to the grave."

The language of the order of the Council, and the terms employed in this cotemporaneous notice of the funeral procession, appear to be quite conclusive of the fact that the interment was, as Colonel Munford states, in the church-yard of St. John's, Richmond.

Quite extensive inquiry among old citizens of Richmond, who take an interest in matters of this nature, corroborates the conclusion of Colonel Munford, that the grave was on the west side of the church building and not far from the wall.

The precise spot could not now be ascertained, except, possibly, by exploration with the spade. But your committee is of opinion that if such a memorial stone, as seems contemplated by the resolution, were erected on that side of the church, and near the wall, it would be sufficiently near the place of interment to answer the purpose.

The committee, however, is much impressed with the ephemeral character of monuments exposed to the elements. For this reason, and the yet more controlling one, that a memorial such as this Association would be willing to erect, would cost several hundred dollars at the least, they are forced to abandon the idea of a monument at his grave, even if the grave could be exactly located.

But the committee is not willing to recommend that the Association relinquish the purpose of erecting a memento to such a man as Chancellor Wythe.

On consideration, they are of opinion that a mural tablet might be erected which would serve to hold him out to the profession as a great exemplar. Such tablets are not expensive, and, being protected, are practically unlimited in their durability.

The committee would recommend its erection in St. John's church but for the fact that this church is a wooden structure, which places it out of the question. Two other places suggest themselves as equally appropriate. One is the chapel of the College of William and Mary, at Williamsburg, of which institution he was an alumnus. He was long a resident of Williamsburg, and many of his greatest cotemporaries now sleep beneath that chapel.

The other is the room of the new City Hall in Richmond, which is to be set aside for its Chancery Court. We can imagine no greater incentive for the Bar of the present day than to have constantly under their eyes such memorials to the great jurists of the past.

Your committee recommend the passage of the following:

Resolved, That a committee of three be appointed by the President, whose duty it shall be to procure the assent and concurrence of the proper authorities, and cause to be erected, either in the court-room of the Chancery Court for the city of Richmond, in the new court-room to be erected in the city of Richmond for the Court of Appeals, or in the chapel of William and Mary College, a mural tablet, with a suitable inscription, to the memory of Chancellor George Wythe, at a cost not to exceed the sum of two hundred dollars; which sum shall be disbursed for said purpose by the Treasurer, upon the order of the chairman of said committee.

Respectfully submitted.