the alchemist.

He had always been noted as a man of good deeds; but it was when that besom of death, with its "woe-delighting train the ministers of grief and pain," swept over his devoted town, in 1878, that this divine quality of his nature was exemplified with more than mortal glare. When the neighboring town of Grenada had fallen into the arms of the inexorable fiend, and its shrieks reached the gates of Holly Springs, they were thrown wide open to its flying, homeless people, and Colonel Walter was mainly the author of the deed. He opposed all quarantine regulations, and opened his heart, his hands, and his house to the terror-stricken refugees, and when the fatal malady, lurking in the clothes of the strangers, reached forth and seized upon his own people, he counselled and urged them all to flee for their lives; but, said he, "As for me and my sons, we cannot go; we must fight this foe; we must succor our people and administer to the sick, the dying, and the dead." Colonel Walter's family was a remarkably interesting one. He was married, in 1849, to Miss Fredonia M. Brown, daughter of Colonel James Brown, of Oxford, a lady of rare accomplishments and of an exceedingly amiable character. From this marriage were born ten children, nine of whom lived until the visitation of the scourge. He had promptly, at the outbreak of the fever, sent his family away, except his three sons, who partook of the heroic spirit of their father and shared his glorious death.

While in the midst of his charitable labors, Colonel Walter was himself stricken down, on the 19th day of September, 1879, and his three sons followed him within the same week. These noble young men had but recently graduated with distinction at the university of the State, and Frank was a law partner of his father, while Avent and Jimmie were studying for the profession in his office. When Frank, the oldest, was advised to leave, in the beginning of the plague, he replied, "No, I cannot go; and if I die, let my epitaph be written in the one word-Duty." It is said that it had always been his wish to be a great lawyer, lead a blameless life, and that his death might be crowned with some glorious act. On the fatal morning when he was stricken, before retiring to his home to die, he went in person and selected his burial-casket, observing that as he had lived as a gentle

man, he wished to be buried as one; and ere the next day's sun the young man was laid away. Jimmie, who was acting as postmaster of the city of the dead, died on the same day, praying that his life might be spared for the sake of his mother and little sisters. Avent, who had fallen a few days before, went away rejoicing at the thought of meeting his mother, his father, and his brothers and sisters in heaven. The pious death of this young man would furnish a theme for a sermon that would echo against the walls of eternity.

Thus perished this noble family, while standing in the breach, while endeavoring to ward from others the shafts more fatal than the arrows of Apollo that twanged their fatal whiz through the Grecian camps on the plains of Troy. Amid all these scenes of terror, when the eyes of Heaven seemed averted from the doomed people, Colonel Walter still bowed to the will of his Maker. On one occasion a young wife who had just lost her husband, and who now saw other members of her family dying, half crazed with grief, wandered through the streets in desperation at her calamities. Colonel Walter met her and endeavored to comfort and soothe her agonizing distress, but in the bitterness of her grief she cried out against the justice of God. His eloquent and only reply was to reverently uncover his gray head, and glancing upward, exclaim, "Though he slay me, yet will I trust him."

No nobler martyrdom was ever recorded upon the pages of history or hallowed the memory of mortal than that which crowned the death of this good man and his three noble and promising sons; but they have their reward. Let them sleep.

Rest, honored ones, rest from your toil,
Beneath your own dear Southern soil.
With those you died for take your rest;
Sleep on now with our loved and blest,
Sleep till the just Almighty One

Pronounce on you the sweet "Well done."

CHAPTER XIII.

THE CONVENTION OF

1868-THE PRESENT
PRUDENCE.

1861-THE CONSTITUTION OF

STATE OF MISSISSIPPI JURIS

THE

BAR-EMINENT

LIVING LAWYERS WHO ARE MORE THAN THREESCORE AND TEN YEARS OLD-SAMUEL J. GHOLSON-ALEXANDER M. CLAYTON-ALEXANDER H. HANDY-JAMES M. HOWRY-J. F. H. *

CLAIBORNE.

THE Convention of 1861, which withdrew Mississippi from the Federal Union, made no changes in its organic law. The Constitution of 1832 was readopted, with the addition of the following amendment :

"Be it ordained and declared, and it is hereby ordained and declared, That the Legislature shall have power to fix the time of holding all elections, and may adjust the terms of office to conform to any changes hereafter to be made, and may fix the time for the commencement of its biennial sessions.

"Be it ordained and declared, and it is hereby ordained and declared, That if any part of the present Constitution of the State of Mississippi shall be in conflict with any ordinance passed by this Convention, such part of the said Constitution shall be held to be abrogated and annulled to the extent of such conflict, but no further."

These ordinances, however, contained nothing materially repugnant to the existing Constitution, save the altered status

* It is to be regretted that the Honorable John W. C. Watson failed to respond to the solicitations of the author in regard to data for his biog raphy; for his standing for many years at the bar of Mississippi surely entitles him to a prominent place in the annals of its eminence.

of its political allegiance and the adoption of the Confederate Constitution as the supreme law of the State; and the courts having fallen almost into disuse during the period of the war, no improvement was ingrafted upon the judicial system by legislative enactment.

But the Constitution of 1868 remodelled the entire judiciary of the State, broke up the very fountains of its established order of society, and instituted the era of a new political polity. The High Court of Errors and Appeals, with its elective judiciary, was abolished, and a Supreme Court, consisting of three judges appointed by the Governor, subject to the confirmation of the Senate, was established and clothed with such jurisdiction only as properly belongs to a supreme court. The circuit benches were also required to be filled by appointment, and a separate chancery court was established in each county, with full jurisdiction in all matters in equity and such as pertain to a court of chancery. For this purpose the State was required to be divided into districts composed of not more than four counties, and the chancellors were made appointable in the same manner as the circuit judges and the judges of the Supreme Court; and it authorized the Legislature to select such partisan papers as it might see proper in the several counties as official journals. It established the office of lieutenant-governor, who should by virtue of his office be the Speaker of the Senate; also a commisioner of emigration and agriculture, who should be elected by the Legislature on joint ballot, and substituted a county board of supervisors for the old board of police.

It inaugurated a comprehensive system of public schools, and provided for the appointment of a State superintendent of education, who, with the Secretary of State and Attorney-General, should form a Board of Education for the management and investment of the school funds under the direction of the Legislature. It also provided for a superintendent to be appointed for each county by the State board, but that office might be made elective by the Legislature. It provided for the establishment of an agricultural college, and devoted to its endowment the two hundred and ten thousand acres of land donated to the State for educational purposes by the General Government.

It enfranchised all competent citizens of the United States who shall have resided six months in the State and two months in the county of their suffrage, and required an oath of the electors to support and obey the Constitution and laws of the United States, and of Mississippi, and affixed a clause that no amendment made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eighty-five should require a property or educational qualification for any person to become an elector. It prohibited the uttering of private notes and bills as money, and restrained the State from participating in the stock of corporations, and from lending its credit to any private enterprise.

The Revised Code adopted at the session of 1880, and which took effect in November, contains many important changes and decided improvements in the judicial practice of the State. It has abolished the troublesome "writ of error," and provides that causes shall be taken to the Supreme Court only by appeal, and which shall not fail in consequence of any irregularity, if the appellant will perfect his appeal as may be required by the Supreme Court.

Dower and courtesy are abolished, and husband and wife inherit respectively from each other, taking a child's part if there are children, and the whole estate if there are no children by any marriage.

Married women are completely emancipated from all commonlaw disabilities as to their separate property, and they may deal with it and bind themselves personally as if unmarried, and husband and wife may sue each other. The women are free from every legal restraint except the bonds of matrimony.

Private seals are abolished, and neither their presence or absence affects any instrument either as to rights or remedies. Defect of religious belief does not render one incompetent as a witness.

Persons charged with crime may testify in their own behalf in all cases in which the prosecutor is made a witness, or in which the admissions or confessions of the accused are introduced as evidence.

With these decidedly improved features, and with the exception of a few anomalous provisions in its Constitution placed