Quaker parents look upon his course? While he debated with himself this question, he chanced to overhear a conversation that solved it. He heard his father say to his mother: "Do you think Charlie will enlist?" She answered: "I'd hate terribly to have him go, but I'd hate worse to think I had a son that would n't." His career as a soldier was but a part of the performance of his duty as a citizen. In point of time it was but a brief episode in a long, active and useful life. But had he done nothing more to deserve well of his fellow men, this would have won for him a lasting and honorable place in their hearts, and been the cause of just pride to those who bear his name.

With his regiment, the Ninth Kansas cavalry, he shared the dinger, hardship and privation of border warfare; guarding the frontier of Kansas from guerilla raids, helping in the struggle to hold Missouri for the Union, and contesting with the forces of the Confederacy in the heart of Arkansas. Wherever he was placed he did his duty manfully and well. The comradeships of those years were among his dearest memories. The patriotism of which he then gave proof characterized a long life of publicspirited endeavor and loyal devotion to his ideals of liberty and government.

Shortly after the close of the war he began his legal studies, and within a few years entered upon what was to be his life's work the practice of the law. His sturdy, rugged character gave him but cold respect for ceremonies and formalities. Yet he was not of the type of lawyer, frequently found in a new community, who seeks to take advantage of unformed and unstable conditions to carry his point by self-assertion and bluster. He was not the traditional frontier practitioner. He sat at the feet of the masters of his profession, and diligently sought in what they had spoken to find the key by which to solve each new problem. He plied his trade with the tools he found at hand. He abided by the rules laid down. A wise and prudent counselor, knowing the uncertainty of the result of legal controversy, he was always averse to avoidable litigation. Yet to him a lawsuit, when under way, was a battle, and he heeded Polonius' advice to Laertes: "Beware

Of entrance to a quarrel; but being in,

Bear't that th' opposed may beware of thee."

In his twelve years service as a judge of the district court he realized to the full the ideal relation of the occupant of that office to the people. Standing always sternly for the vindication of the law, he was yet the kindly mediator in the misunderstandings of friends and neighbors, rather than the cold arbiter of their disputes. It would be too much to say of any one that he could so decide a controversy as to satisfy both parties, but the most disappointed litigant in Judge GRAVES' court knew that he had had the benefit of the sincere judgment of a trained jurist, upon a careful and conscientious consideration, unaffected by anything whatever outside of the merits of the case.

Skilled in the niceties of a somewhat artificial procedure, schooled in combats where the champion of either side must be alert to seize upon every advantage of position, in mere selfdefense, it would have been natural that he should form habits of thought rendering him slow to respond to the modern demand for a relaxation of technical rules. But the fact was far

otherwise. Especially in the last few years of his service upon the bench, he came to his own in this regard. The spirit of progress has wrought a change in the methods by which legal controversies are settled. Legislatures and courts alike have striven to simplify the process by which results are reached-to look to substance rather than to form; to matter than to manner. And this principle was at the base of the mental operations of Judge GRAVES. His mind instinctively took the short cut to a conclusion that satisfied the sense of justice. Forms he regarded but as means to an end. The parties to litigation were to him not mere puppets or lay figures-they were real people; creatures of flesh and blood. A lawsuit to him was not a contest of skill, where superior adroitness was to be rewarded by victory, but a search for truth; not a controversy over abstract propositions, but an effort to discover and apply the rule that right and justice required in the very matter in hand. He was ever direct and to the point. His words were few because he weighed them well, and they carried force accordingly.

These traits show clearly in his written opinions, which disclose a vigor of grasp, a clearness of conception and a force of expression that make them a permanent and valuable addition to the literature of the law. But they are also an interesting study as a revelation of the peculiar quality of his mind. They are terse, crisp, pointed. They go directly to the question on which the decision turns. They contain little that is merely incidental, less that is extraneous, and nothing that is only ornamental or inserted by way of rhetorical flourish. In the rare instances in which they reveal a suggestion of humor, the context plainly shows that this proceeded, not from a desire to provoke a laugh, but from a conviction that the means chosen was adapted to point out forcibly that an argument, because incongruous, was unsound. To the contention that the differences in local jails resulted in an inequality in the operation of the law, he answered that the lawbreaker was free to make his own choice of his field of operation. This was not levity, but a serious employment of the logician's weapon.

It is worthy of remark that in what was perhaps the only instance in which he ever inserted in an opinion matter not bearing directly upon the questions at issue, he paused in his discussion to pay a tribute to the record and character of the trial judge whose decision was under review, and whose recent retirement from the bench made the comment pertinent. The well-chosen words which he then spoke of another may now fitly be said of him:

"His thorough knowledge of legal principles and his clear perception of natural justice made him peculiarly fitted for judicial service, and contributed in a large measure to the success which gave him prominence as a jurist and caused him to be generally recognized as an able and impartial judge."

Everyone recognized and paid homage to his ability and integrity. A casual acquaintance might have read in his countenance something grim and austere might have thought him difficult of approach and of an unsympathetic temperament. How wide of the truth such a conception lies is shown by the number of his friends and by the strength of their attachment. He never wore his heart upon his sleeve. He was not demonstrative, not obtrusively emotional. He was quiet, reserved, self-con

tained, to some extent self-repressed; but he was quickly and heartily responsive to every call of friendship, and kindness and good humor lay ever near the surface, coming to light upon every fair occasion. It was a revelation, even to one who knew him well, to discover the warmth of affection with which he was regarded in every community where he had lived. To hear the white-haired veteran, the old associate and the townsman of a later generation alike refer to him kindly as CHARLIE GRAVES is to realize the ties of intimacy that bound him to his fellow men.

His iron constitution delayed the advance of resistless disease almost beyond belief. In the end death came like a benediction, bringing peace and rest.

"Rest for hand and brow and breast,

For fingers, heart, and brain!

Rest and peace! a long release

From labor and from pain."

To those left behind the death of a near friend, however long expected, comes with a shock that opens anew the fountains of grief.

"Early or late, come when it will,
At midnight or at noon,

Promise of good, or threat of ill,

Death always comes too soon."

But to the weary sufferer to whom life has become a bed of pain, death wears not the garb of a grim destroyer, but of a ministering angel. He most of all can feel the truth of the poet's vision:

"What if some morning, when the stars were paling,
And the dawn whitened, and the east was clear,
Strange peace and rest fell on me from the presence
Of a benignant spirit standing near;

"And should I tell him, as he stood beside me:

"This is our earth, most friendly earth and fair; Daily its sea and shore through sun and shadow Faithful it turns, robed in its azure air.

""There is blest living here, loving and serving,

And quest of truth, and serene friendships dear;
But stay not, spirit; Earth has one destroyer-
His name is Death; flee, lest he find thee here.'
"And what if then, while the still morning brightened,
And freshened in the elm the summer's breath,
Should gravely smile on me the gentle angel,

And take my hand and say, 'My name is Death?'

Until the appearance of his last illness the rugged physique of Judge GRAVES seemed to promise many added years of vigHis work was acorous life. But it was decreed otherwise. complished, his course run, his goal reached. He is a part of The truthful record of his the history of the community. achievement realizes his ideal-a constant, whole-hearted, unThe ceasing devotion to duty-the doing of the work in hand. The great world of business pauses not long at any grave.

C-87 KAN.

place here of any individual is quickly filled. But the forces he has set in motion never cease. And who shall measure the effect or count the worth to us of the life of him of whom this epitaph may be truly spoken:

"With purpose high, and courage rare,

With cheerful heart he bore his share-
His daily part-of toil and care,

His day's work; a man's work.
The rays of life's descending sun
Reveal complete each task begun;
His toil is o'er, his work is done,

His life's work; a man's work."

Board of Comm'rs of Cloud Co., Wilson v.

798

Board of Comm'rs of Cowley Co., The State, ex rel., v..

732

Board of Comm'rs of Reno Co., Railway Co. v..

555

Board of Education v. Davis

286

Boice Cattle Co., Security Co. v..

101

Boiler Works, Henry v...

Borrer, Brown v..

Bowen v. Timmer.

Boyer v. Hail Insurance Co..

571

878

162

293