On motion, the report was adopted.

Colonel Stickley: At the suggestion of our delegate friend from West Virginia, I move that the Association appoint a delegate and alternate to represent us at the meeting of the Bar Association of West Virginia this fall; and I ask, in making this motion, that I be excluded from consideration as a member of that committee.

Carried.

The President: The report of the Committee on Memorials to Deceased Members is now in order.

Major Charles S. Stringfellow: Mr. President, death has been very busy amongst the members of this Association since our last annual meeting. Since that time R. Taylor Scott, W. R. Staples, Thomas J. Kirkpatrick, W. S. Barton, B. T. Gunter, W. B. Taliaferro, E. J. Brugh, S. S. Turner, S. F. Coleman, W. J. Robertson, J. P. Fitzgerald, R. G. H. Kean, R. T. W. Duke-thirteen in all-have answered to the last roll-call. There are so many memorials that it is quite impossible to read them all to-night, and the committee, therefore, would suggest, if it meets with the approval of the Association, that the memorials of only the three who have been Presidents of this Association be read, and that the others be reported to the Sec etary to be held and printed in the proceedings of this Association.

Major John H. Lewis: I second that motion.

Carried.

Major Stringfellow: Before I read this paper, which has been prepared by our brother, Charles M. Blackford, of Lynchburg, I am sure that it will not be deemed inappropriate if I voice what I know to be the feeling of regret that animates us all at his enforced absence from this meeting, and also voice

the hope that long before we are called to meet again he may be entirely relieved from the physical disability that makes his absence from this meeting a necessity and not a matter of choice.

Major Stringfellow then read the memorial on Judge William J. Robertson.

(See Memorial at end of Minutes.)

Major Stringfellow: It would be inexcusable for me to attempt to add anything to this beautiful tribute, but a: I look back over the twenty years which have elapsed since Judge Robertson signed his name to my license to practice law, and as I recall the pleasant hours spent during those years of acquaintanceship, which soon ripened into friendship, unbroken by a word I would now recall, I would at least express my appreciation of all that has been said in commendation of the virtues of private life and great ability that adorned his career, both at the bar and on the bench. "A purer and lovelier gentleman, born in the prodigality of nature, this spacious earth doth not afford."

Mr. A. R. Long, of Lynchburg, read the memorial on Mr. R. G. H. Kean, prepared by Mr. Randolph Harrison, of Lynchburg, and Mr. George Perkins, of Charlottesville, read a memorial, prepared by Mr. Rosewell Page, of Richmond, on Judge Waller R. Staples.

(See Memorials at end of Minutes.)

Major John H. Lewis: I have an amendment to the By-Laws, which was offered by Mr. J. Lawrence Campbell, which it is necessary to take up to-night.

The resolution, notice of which was given by Mr. Campbell on the first day of the session (see page 16), was then read by the Secretary.

General John J. Williams: I do not make this as a motion, but rather as a suggestion. Wouldn't it operate rather as a conscript act, and would there not, in some instances, be great danger of members being put in embarrassing positions? The members selected by the committee might be in such relations to the culprit they were expected to prosecute that it would be almost impossible to do so, and it does seem to me that it is a right high-handed measure that we are asked to adopt.

Mr. J. R. V. Daniel, of Richmond: I think that most of the members will agree that this is a very wise and desirable measure. We may always learn, I think, from the experience of other bodies, a great deal about any proposition advanced. I was informed a year ago, by a very prominent lawyer in Baltimore, that this method had been adopted by the Bar Association of Baltimore; that it was constantly carried out, and found to be a most successful plan. I myself cannot imagine how a better method could be adopted, and in the absence of the sug· gention of a better one I rise to second the resolution very heartily.

Mr. Jackson Guy: Mr. President, I would like to say that I think the resolution is one in the right direction. No one, I suppose, will dispute the object intended to be accomplished by it. I will state that the difficulties in the way of the Association managing any case of reported misconduct consist in the fact, chiefly, that its members are scattered all over the State, and that its committees are necessarily likewise scattered all over the State. This very Committee on Grievances is one which has its members extending from Norfolk to Roanoke, and so on around. The only case of a grievance that the Association ever attempted to do anything with was one which was reported to it and was investigated by the Committee on Grievances at Norfolk, and that was before the By-Law was changed, twelve months ago, whereby the committee was reduced to five. We had great diffi

culty in that case in getting a quorum of the committee at Norfolk, but by paying the expenses of the members and by urgent solicitation on the part of the Executive Committee, we did obtain a quorum at Norfolk of those who were most accessible to that place. They went there and stayed a day and investigated the charge. You can very well see that if the committee had to prosecute the offender before the courts to accomplish the object of disbarring him, it would require their being in session at that place many days-some days, certainly.

Without calling any names, a case is in contemplation before the Committee on Grievances that deserves our notice, in a distant locality in the State from here. It will be very expensive to the Association-it will be almost impracticable to get the members of the committee, although they now consist of five only, to attend away out there a sufficient length of time successfully to carry through the investigation of the case, and if necessary conduct a successful prosecution.

I therefore think that Mr. Lewis's contemplated amendment will accomplish much for the Association in the way of making this arm of the Association, so to speak, more effective. I am sure we all desire that such should be the case. One of our foundation tenets is to uphold the standard of honor and integrity in the profession. And while, as my friend, Mr. Williams, says, there may be cases where it will be exceedingly disagreeable for a member to assume the attitude of prosecutor against a delinquent lawyer, still it is even better that that risk should be incurred by us, and we should have it done even at that risk; and although some may decline to do it, yet I think that when a member feels that he is designated by the Association and requested by the Association to act, he will, under the statute law of the State, make this application in the name of the Association, call the attention of the judge of the circuit to it, and have the delinquent prosecuted.

I think the amendment is a wise one; and while I admit, as

Mr. Williams has already stated, that it may impose and that it must impose a disagreeable duty on some of us, still I think that our members ought, in justice to the profession and in duty to the Association, to enact it.

Major John H. Lewis: When we came to look into this subject, and came actually to deal with a case where the Committee on Grievances thought that the machinery already existed under the statute law, we found that everybody was a long way off from the scene of investigation, and there was no method by which our object could be accomplished. If, for example, a matter occurred in Washington county, I will say, in response to the suggestion of my friend (General Williams), it might be disagreeable to anybody out in that direction to have to undertake the burden of the prosecution. Yet nobody can go from Richmond or Norfolk for the purpose, and it occurred to the committee that it would be most natural that somebody on the ground should be charged with the duty of dealing with this subject. And when you come to reduce it to a categorical quo modo, no other was suggested at all.

So far as the disagreeable nature of the duty is concerned, a large part of the work of a lawyer partakes of that character, and yet I have never known one to flinch from his duty on that account. And surely if you appoint a member to prosecute somebody whom he might ordinarily call a brother, he would have a good excuse to be able to say to the court and jury, if there was a jury, and there is a provision in the section of the Code for a jury, that he had his duty to perform as well as other people, and that he did not propose to flinch from it; that it is made his duty by membership in the Bar Association to give information to the court that a certain matter has occurred in that circuit which required the attention of the court. It does not occur to me that anybody could criticise or impugn him for doing this. It strikes me that if we are going to deal with the matter at all the only method of doing it is the one here sug