States senator from Ohio for eighteen years; Wilson Shannon, governor of Ohio and territorial governor of Kansas and minister to Mexico; Hugh J. Jewett, afterwards prominent as a railroad president and manager; the elder William Kennon, member of congress and judge of the supreme court of Ohio, and Benjamin Sprague Cowen, judge of the court of common pleas and member of congress. Some of these were still in active practice when young Collins came to the bar. Besides these there was William Kennon, Jr., Daniel D. T. Cowen, St. Clair Kelly, Lorenzo Danford and others. In conversation shortly before his death, when recalling his old associates at the bar of Belmont county, Judge Collins said he regarded Daniel D. T. Cowen as the greatest lawyer he ever met. Of Cowen, Judge John W. Okey said: "He was the best practitioner I ever saw at the bar." General Tow Ewing said of him: "Judge Cowen, of Belmont, was the best lawyer in the Constitutional Convention of 1873." William McKinley said of Danford, that he, next to Garfield, was the ablest man in the Ohio delegation in ongress. It was at this bar, and among such associates, that young Collins had to make his way, and force and find recognition; and, doubtless, the conflicts with them, in which he was compelled always to put forth his best efforts, had great influence and effect in developing him as a lawyer.

It is said of the lawyers then of the county seat of Belmont county that they gave cold welcome to those from other towns, even in their own county, and that they made no exception of young Collins from Barnesville when he came into court. The obstacles which were thus thrown in the young practitioner's way also aided in the development of his strength and capacity as a lawyer.

He was beginning to feel, that, in a measure, he could hold his own in the practice, when an incident occurred which Judge Collins often said made him a lawyer. Collins was a Democrat. The judicial sub-district was then composed of the counties of Belmont and Monroe, and was strongly Democratic. It was impossible to elect any one but a Democrat as Common Pleas Judge. Belmont was the more populous of the two counties, and the bulk

of the legal business of the sub-district was there. But at the judicial convention, Monroe county, for the first time in many years, and through some political trade, nominated the candidate for Common Pleas Judge. He was a lawyer of moderate ability and dissipated habits, and was full of small, but violent, prejudices. Collins headed a revolt against him and joined with other Democratic lawyers of Belmont county in bringing out an independent candidate. The Republicans made no nomination. The Democratic nominee was elected, and served notice on Collins that he would not forget the latter's opposition. The judge did not forget it, for, in every case in which Collins appeared before him, he beat him whenever and wherever he could. Tradition may tell of other unseemly manifestations of animosity by judges of this state towards members of the bar practicing before them, but hardly of any so remarkable as this in respect of the want of concealment and the amount and continuity of the venom displayed from the bench. Collins soon realized that he not only had to fight for his professional existence, but also had to carry his cases beyond the Court of Common Pleas in order to protect the rights of his clients. He kept his temper, coolly accepted the situation, appealed his appealable cases, and, in the other cases, took exceptions to adverse decisions and prosecuted error to the District Court. It was a sore trial to him, in addition to the other difficulties he encountered in his practice, to be compelled to learn by hard study and such experience the ways of appeal and error proceedings; but, after some tribulations and failures, he mastered the methods of reversing the unjust judgments of his judicial enemy, and at the same time quarried deeper into the mine of legal principles and knowledge. After learning the road to the District Court, it was comparatively easy to go on to the Supreme Court of the State, and he was soon taking cases there.

As a result of this experience he found himself established as a lawyer, and his more brilliant cotemporaries began to recognize his force and slowly-acquired ability and skill in the profession. They soon found that, as an antagonist, he had resources within himself, and a dogged tenacity and perseverence that would seldom acknowledge defeat until final judgment in the court of

last resort. This tenacity and perseverance is well illustrated by the case of The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company vs. Whittaker, reported in 24 O. S., 642, and in 35 O. S., 627. In this case, heavy verdicts were rendered against the railroad company, his client, which were sustained by the courts below; and twice at least he carried the case to the Supreme Court, where the judgments were each time reversed and the cause remanded. The case was finally settled by the payment by the railroad company of simply the costs of the case. In this case, D. D. T. Cowen and St. Clair Kelly were the lawyers opposed to him.

By reason of the fact that the cases of The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company were oftentimes removable and removed to the Federal Courts, Judge Collins was much engaged in practice in those courts, especially in the later years of his life, and with the practice and procedure thereof he became quite conversant.

In July, 1891, he became a member of the board of instruction of the Law Department of the Ohio State University; in 1893, he was made Professor of the Law of Corporations; in 1895, Federal Practice was added to his department of instruction; in 1896, his title became Professor of Federal Practice and Extraordinary Remedies; and, from 1897 until his death, he limited his work to instruction on Federal Practice.

For twenty-five years, he was president of The Central Ohio Railroad Company as reorganized, which, notwithstanding the lease of its property to The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company, continued and kept up its corporate organization.

Judge Collins' equipment for his life work was such as to augur success. He was poor, but not so poor that ambition was stifled, and thus there was ever present in his early life a stimulus to exertion. He labored on the farm; he mined coal and hauled it to market; he taught school. The great lessons of industry and self-reliance were undertaken willingly, yet none the less from necessity. His heritage included a healthy and vigorous body, a strong and well balanced, though somewhat sluggish, mind, great will power, untiring energy, and a courage that never faltered. If he began the practice of law without financial resources, and perhaps more poorly equipped than his brethren at a bar which ranked

high, his determination and perseverance were such that he gradually forced recognition and gained prestige, and ultimately won a place and name for himself, which caused a former judge of the Supreme Court of this State to say of him, that he was the greatest and ablest railroad lawyer in Ohio. Others have, perhaps, not given him so high a rank. His continued employment by The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company for thirty-eight successive years bespeaks loyalty on his part and a high order of talent that was recognized by his client. The dockets of the courts wherein he practiced and the later Ohio state reports bear abundant evidence of his activity as a lawyer. He contributed a goodly share toward the settlement, in both State and Federal Courts, of many important questions affecting steam railways. His practice was mainly on the law side of the courts; and, knowing the tendency of juries to return verdicts against corporations, he did not place a high estimate on their findings. He placed little reliance on oratorical effect; but he carefully prepared the facts and the law of his cases, was quick to detect and take advantage of error in the record, and usually prosecuted his cases, when defeated, so iong as there was a reviewing court to which he could go for relief. He generally came to the point quickly in his examination of witnesses, and devoted little time to unimportant or immaterial issues. He centered his energies, whether attacking or defending, on what he conceived to be the vital point or points of his cases, and, to a somewhat unusual degree, ignored all other points. He was more than ordinarily successful. To know well and thoroughly develop a few master facts and controlling principles, was by him deemed of more importance than to present many facts and principles indifferently. He did not scatter his vision, but kept steadily in view the decisive points in his He traversed the foot-hills, but he kept his eyes fixed on the mountain peaks beyond. Like a good general, if he saw several lines of successful attack or defense, one or more of which was complete in itself, he selected the least vulnerable to the exclusion of the others; and he did not always utilize all of those which he deemed sufficient, but held something in reserve for an emergency. He was not a case lawyer, but he reasoned from the

case.

settled principles of the law; and, although he had one of the finest private law libraries in central Ohio, he seldom consulted authority until he had fully determined the theory of his case. He cared as little for precedent as for a jury's verdict. With a dogged perseverance, confident of the correctness of his position, he fought his cases from court to court, when defeated, until there was none other to which he could go. Defeat did not dismay him; victory did not elate him. Whether he encountered one or the other, he fought on, believing that no case is settled until determined by the court of last resort, and that it is not therein rightly settled unless in accordance with the established principles of the law. He placed a high estimate on his profession. He believe that skill still wins favor, as it has always done, and as it always will do until the end of time; and that it is beneath the dignity of a lawyer to solicit business. To him the law was a jealous mistress, and to her he devoted his undivided time. It is true he loved his farm, but it was rather as a pastime for rest and recreation than otherwise. In politics, for many years, he adhered tenaciously to the doctrines advocated by the Democratic party, but in later years he made partisanship subservient to his own opinions as to the policies of parties and the fitness of candidates. Civic honors never allured him from his professional duties, and party spirit never led him to vote for inferior men for the bench. He was generally known and called "Judge" Collins, but he was never the occupant of or a candidate for judicial office.

He was a member of the national convention which assembled at Chicago in 1864 and nominated General McClellan for the presidency. In 1873, he was the candidate of the Democratic party in Belmont county for member of the Ohio constitutional convention, but was defeated by Judge Cowen.

As a man he was possessed of the strictest integrity. His manner of speech was plain. He was companionable to a high degree. Although courteous and deferential towards others, yet, if he regarded himself treated discourteously, he struck back quickly and with vigor; and his qualities as a fighter were equaled only by his steadfastness as a friend. His spirit was so deter