Obituary Sketch of Samuel B. Sumner. Sidney B. Beardsley, then a leading member of the Fairfield County bar and afterwards a judge of the Supreme Court of the state. Col. Sumner was a good lawyer, skillful in the conduct of his cases, and with a ready command of language. He was faithful to every trust and always true to his clients. He had an exalted opinion of the dignity of the legal profession and of the responsibility of its members. In one of his poems he says of the "thorough lawyer," that he “can but be the thorough man." Col. Sumner in the course of his life held various offices of honor and trust. While practicing his profession in Great Barrington he was elected to the Massachusetts Senate; and during his residence in Bridgeport he was city attorney, city judge, judge of probate, and, previous to 1884, assistant clerk of the Superior Court. He filled all these offices with marked ability and fidelity. In 1884 he was appointed by the judges clerk of the Superior Court for Fairfield County, and was annually reappointed and held that position at the time of his death. The court never had a more competent clerk, while his uniform courtesy and kindliness made him very popular with the members of the bar. But it is as a poet that Col. Sumner will be longest and best remembered. It has been a general opinion that in failing to devote himself to literary pursuits he made the mistake of his life. He early exhibited a taste for poetry and an aptitude for poetic composition. His friends were not long in discovering that he was a genuine poet and not a mere writer of verses. It is the poet's province to minister to the demand of the human soul for something more than this world affords—something better than the common events of life. No one who has carefully read his poems can have failed to observe that this ministering spirit pervades all his graver productions. These are all lofty in sentiment, and morally and religiously elevating in their tone and tendency. Even his lighter and gayer poems, though abounding in witticisms and happy touches, never descend below what is healthy, pure and refined. As a poet he was in great demand at public gatherings of various societies and organizations, and their committees of arrangement thought themselves fortunate if they succeeded in securing a poem to be read by him on such occasions. He had always something appropriate and worthy of being heard. He was not only a poet, but a poet-orator. Nobody could deliver his particular poem to a particular audience with such a touch on the pulse of that audience as Col. Sumner himself had. This, and his winning ways, made him a universal favorite at social gatherings. It may be truthfully said that no other poet has delivered so many of what might be termed occasional poems as he. Oliver Wendell Holmes in 1877 wrote him as follows: "I thought I had written more occasional poems than almost anybody else, but you have put me quite to the blush." Col Sumner received a Obituary Sketch of Samuel B. Sumner. number of complimentary letters from him, and one from Tennyson in 1875. Early in life Col. Sumner joined the order of “Free and Accepted Masons." His warm heart, strong social nature, sparkling wit and ready speech, made him a special favorite in that order, and he attained a leading position in it. He was often called upon to read poems before its gatherings and was always greeted with great enthusiasm. 66 Col. Sumner's domestic attachments were very strong. The volume of poems before mentioned, published by himself and his brother, is dedicated to the memory of their mother, from whose cultured lips we learned our first and best lessons." The last poem of the volume, written by him, is a warm tribute to his father. Another of great beauty and full of pathos mourns the death of a sister. His attachment to a brother residing in California was so great that it is said that scarcely a week, and many times scarcely a day, passed without his sending him some token or message of remembrance; and he has told, in one of his finest poems, of his terrible anguish over the death of his brother Albert, who perished by shipwreck in 1873 off the coast of Nova Scotia. This brother had been abroad perfecting himself in music, and was returning, full of enthusiasm, to fill an engagement which had been made for him, as organist of St. John's Church, in Bridgeport. A few years later, and not long before his own death, his wife, to whom he was most tenderly attached, died very suddenly. He never after this recovered his former elasticity of spirits, and seemed to desire to live only for his children. At the time of his death Col. Sumner was, and for many years had been, a communicant in St. John's Episcopal Church of Bridgeport and one of its vestrymen. He was a regular attendant upon its services and was deeply interested in both its temporal and spiritual welfare. In his graver poems his unfaltering faith is held up before us in no doubtful language, and they present him to us as constantly earnest in moral purpose. Among them are found the following lines, which, though perhaps not equal in merit to much that he wrote, show the absence from his nature of all spirit of ostentation, and his desire to be remembered for some good accomplished, and by those who loved him rather than by the world at large. They are of special interest now that his earthly life is ended. When I must answer to the final call, But, should I join the multitudinous dead, Who leave no foot-prints on time's treacherous sands, Enough for me to have my children shed Sometimes a tear beside the spot where stands The simple stone placed o'er my dust by friendly hands. INDEX TO THE FIFTY-NINTH VOLUME. ACCORD. See CONDITION PRECEDENT, 1. ADJOURNMENT. See PLEADING, 4. ADMINISTRATOR DE BONIS NON. See MONEY PAID UNDER MISTAKE, 1. See DOWER, 1, 2, 3. APPEAL. 1. In a suit before a justice of the peace both parties appeared and joined 2. The statute, (Gen. Statutes, § 683,) provides that "in all civil actions, APPEAL FROM COMMISSIONERS. 1. An appeal from the doings of commissioners on an insolvent estate is 2. Such an appeal vacates the judgment of the commissioners, and the APPEAL FROM PROBATE. See APPEAL FROM COMMISSONERS, 1, 2; INSOLVENT LAW, 1. After the death of D and a transfer of certain stock, without an order AWARD. See ARBITRATION. BALLOT. 1. The act of 1889, concerning elections, (Session Laws of 1889, ch. 247,) 2. And it seems that it did not affect the case that the ballots were not 1. Where the evidence presents such contingencies as may legitimately 3. In his argument before the court and jury the plaintiff's counsel read into your consideration nor influence you in the slightest degree; that 4. Remarks of the judge in his charge to the jury which are only obser- CLOUD ON TITLE. 1. A cloud upon a title to land is something which shows some prima 2. The mere assertion of a claim, whether made orally or in writing, COMMISSIONERS (APPEAL FROM.) See APPEAL FROM COMMISSIONERS. See HIGHWAY, 1 to 6. COMPOSITION AGREEMENT. 1. The plaintiff, a creditor of the defendant, had signed the following 2. And held that this condition was not implied by the language of the CONDITION PRECEDENT (PERFORMANCE OF.) The plaintiffs, who held a judgment and judgment lien against the de- |