Search -
Yankee Lawyer: The Autobiography of Ephraim Tutt
Yankee Lawyer The Autobiography of Ephraim Tutt Author:Ephraim Tutt The book is replete with anecdote, crowded with vivid sketches of famous people such as President Theodore Roosevelt, the "Rough Rider," and his family, President Calvin Coolidge "Boss" Croker, "Big Bill" Devery, District Attorney Jerome, J. P. Morgan, Sr., Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Joseph H. Choate, Richard Harding Davis, Charles Dana Gibs... more »on, Finley Peter Dunne ("Mr. Dooley"), Robert Collier, Norman Hapgood, Mark Sullivan, Gifford Pinchot, and Lincoln Steffans, juxtaposed with those of dozens of quaint and picturesque characters like "Ma" Best, who ran the Phoenix Hotel in Pottsville, N. Y., "Squire" Hezikiah Mason, "Toggery Bill" Gookin, Constable Mose Higgins, Cy Pennypacker, and other members of "The Sacred Camels of King Menelik" as well as of Bonnie Doon, Minerva Wiggin, and Willie Toothaker of the celebrated firm of Tutt & Tutt.
There is a nostalgic quality about Mr. Tutt's picture of old New York with its embowered streets, its horse-drawn stages that didn't run on Sundays, the four-in-hands and hansom cabs, the old Egyptian Reservoir on Fifth Avenue where the public library now stands, Mrs. William H. (The Public-be-damned) Vanderbilt going to market, basket on arm, and the Four Hundred who were so afraid to mix with common folk that at private evening entertainments the greatest musicians were kept in the pantry until it was time for them to entertain the guests.
Deeply moving is the story of young Ephraim's touching romance with the lovely Esther Farr, the wife of an invalid professor, to whom he remained faithful for forty years, and whose influence molded his entire career.
But most heart-warming of all is the character of the autobiographer as reflected in this always absorbing and often thrilling pages--that of a wise, benign, witty humanitarian, a passionate lover of justice, whose "words were softer than oil, yet were they drawn swords."
The millions who have for so long followed Ephraim Tutt's career and admired his knowledge of the law, his astute handling of facts, his disdain of judges, his eloquent appeals to juries and his countless deeds of kindness may now know the personal story--the mellow richness of the man himself.« less