1876.] 1' [Strong. 



ability to comprehend legal arguments, and to restate 

 them with clearness in a condensed form. His analy- 

 sis of the facts upon which the judgments were ren- 

 dered, was rigid and accurate, and his head notes 

 expressed exactly what the court decided. No com- 

 plaints have ever been made that his syllabus was not 

 sustained by the case. When the reports came from 

 his hands they left nothing to be desired. They must 

 always be regarded as the work of an accomplished 

 lawyer. It is not an easy matter to report well, and it 

 is very rare that any reporter gives full satisfaction to 

 the court and to the bar. The art requires not merely 

 fairness, accuracy, and ability to comprehend what was 

 argued and decided — it requires all that and more. It 

 demands ability to gather from the mass of facts in the 

 record those that really constitute the case, and to 

 state them lucidly, omitting all that are not material, 

 and overlooking none that are. It demands also power 

 to extract from the opinion of the court the legal prin- 

 ciples adjudged to be applicable to the facts, and to 

 restate them in short, and with perfect accuracy. By 

 the universal judgment of the profession, such a re- 

 porter was Mr. Binney. His authorship, as a re- 

 porter, ceased in 1814 on the publication of his sixth 

 volume. 



After 1807 his professional engagements were very 

 large, not only in insurance cases, but in all kinds of 

 important business. He seemed to pass at one bound 

 from his long apprenticeship in waiting into acknowl- 



PROC. AMER. PHILOS. SOC. XVI. 97. C 



