1866.] 213 [Price. 



which of estranged parents shall have their custody, as the best wel- 

 fare of the child may require. They decide upon the validity of 

 marriages, and for cause dissolve the bonds of matrimony. They 

 must decide upon the validity of the local elections; review the 

 ballot-boxes, declare which candidate is entitled to the office; and in 

 the midst of high political excitement must forget that they know any 

 preference of party, and decide fearless of threats and impervious to 

 flattery. They must decide upon all plans presented by the Survey 

 department of the City for the extension of the City plan ; and upon 

 the opening, narrowing, or vacating all streets, and the assessment of 

 all damages for all property taken by the law of eminent domain for 

 streets, railroads, and parks, that justice shall be done between the 

 owners and the public. They appoint the revisors of the taxes, and 

 must hear appeals as to the liability of property to taxation, and the 

 proper valuation thereof. They participate in the appointment of 

 the Prison Inspectors and Guardians of the Poor and Board of Health ; 

 and have a supervisory visitatorial power over the Prisons, Almshou.se, 

 and Houses of Refuge. As a Court of Quarter Sessions the same 

 judges try all the lower grades of crime, and commit children to the 

 Houses of Refuge, and, as a high Court of Oyer and Terminer, they 

 try all felonies and capital cases. Here then is the great central 

 tribunal where all interests and the peace and security of this com- 

 munity are protected and maintained; whose conservative power all, 

 at all times, feel, though many may never enter a court; but there 

 many times through life their personal interests may be deeply in- 

 volved, and there, as certainly as death, shall come their estates for 

 legal transmission and adjudication. This summary enumeration of 

 subjects of adjudication is now and here made, because the public 

 should understand what is done for them by the Courts, and be- 

 cause it is a survey necessary to complete the great lesson of justice 

 to be taught us all by the judicial life and the premature death of 

 Judge Thompson. 



It is not here that we should enter upon a criticism of the many 

 judicial decisions made by Judge Thompson. The members of the 

 legal profession will find these, so far as written and published, in the 

 several volumes of the " Philadelphia Reports," for the past fourteen 

 years. It will suffice here to state the characteristics of those opin- 

 ions. They pai'take of the character of their author. He who was 

 ever calm, self-possessed, patient, seeming to sit the impassive im- 

 personation of justice ; he who was conscientiously faithful, truthful, 

 laborious and learned; he who loved justice, hated iniquity, yet had 



