time he had been intimately associated with him in all of the most trying relations of life, and had never once known him to use an unkind tone or word. Like a ripe shock of corn he has been gathered. It grieves me to lose so true a friend, yet I would not call him back for one moment. The eminent characteristic of this good man was purity. He honestly used all the means God gave him to cultivate his intellect. Those who come hereafter may point to his record and say, "This is the man to imitate." Another one of the ancient and most highly revered members of our brotherhood has been taken from us, and we are here met to deplore our loss and to record our estimate of his worth. William Jervey, who has moved among us for more than thirty-five years, the pattern of professional excellence and the example of private virtue, has finished his course, and was called to rest on Friday last, the 9th instant. The loss is ours, the gain is his.

The influence and example of such a man are of inestimable value. Every member of our profession who has been brought in contact with him will bear testimony to the purity of his character, his unfailing courtesy and watchful kindness. His motives of action were so transparent that no single spot obscured their beauty; perfectly single-minded and sincere, his straight-forward integrity impressed all that had business relations with him, and his high-toned truthfulness inspired entire confidence. To all this were added a mildness and readiness to impart knowledge, which drew to him his younger brethren, and there are many around me who will deplore his removal as the loss of a friend and a brother.

Although well qualified by position, attainments and character to take part in public life, he steadfastly avoided all public office and devoted himself to the duties of his profession. Nevertheless, as an individual citizen, he was always ready to take his place wherever duty called, and although not obtrusive, was ever firm and consistent. His integrity was combined with that generosity of nature, which, while it soared entirely above the region of wrong, was always ready to make allowance for and to forgive the weakness of others. Kindness and charity were his daily companions, and the symmetry of his character was completed by Christian consistency: therefore,

Resolved, That in the death of William Jervey the Bar of Charleston has lost one of its most cherished and respected members.

Resolved, That the purity, integrity, and excellence of character of the deceased stand forth a conspicuous monument of the virtues of the Charleston Bar.

It may be assumed that a law firm, having at its head one possessing his knowledge and experience, and who was so widely known and respected as was Mr. Memminger, would not be without a good clientage.

For many years preceding the revolution that had drawn him into its vortex, he had been in the front rank of the many eminent men who had made the Bar of Charleston and of South Carolina distinguished for its high character, and was justly regarded as authority on all questions of commercial law. The deranged condition of all business affairs, and especially the changed relations between master and servant, brought about by the unwise and vindictive. legislation of the Federal Congress, had brought to ruin many large estates, while the local and State governments had so depressed the commerce of Charleston that the good lawyer found more than ever to engage his mind, to tax his sympathies, and to consume his time.

In order to meet these increased labors, Mr. C. C. Pinckney, Jr., the son-in-law of Mr. Memminger, who had just been admitted, was added to the firm on January 1, 1887.

Between him and Mr. Memminger there always subsisted the warmest relations of sympathy and admiration on the part of the junior, and confidence and affection on the part of the senior.

The active mind and energetic spirit of Mr. Memminger were not to be confined to the routine duties of a lawyer in full practice. There were other avenues of enterprise opening about him, into which he was drawn by circumstances which often bring the lawyer into other relations with the business world than those of counsellor and client.

Immense beds of calcareous nodules, containing numerous fossil bones, had long been known to exist in the vicinity of Charleston. While Agassiz, Tuomey, Holmes and other geologists had called attention to these deposits, it was not until the year 1867 that Dr. N. A. Pratt, of Georgia, then resident at Charleston, discovered the large per cent. of available phosphate of lime which they contained. He at once sought to enlist the capitalists of Charleston in an enterprise of manufacturing from these nodules, or "phosphate

rock," as he first denominated the deposit, a commercial fertilizer. The history of the great phosphate industry of South Carolina is one of the many instances in the history of great enterprises where the positive knowledge of science has had, for a time, to seek in vain for recognition among those whose lack of faith was as great as was their unwillingness to use the power of money in the execution of what they believed. to be no more than a commercial venture. For a time Dr. Pratt, despite the positive demonstration of his analysis, met only with such objections and skeptical criticisms as evidenced a want of confidence in the value of his discovery. It was not until May, 1868, that the Doctor brought the matter to the consideration of Mr. Memminger, whose business sagacity, enterprising spirit and well-known integrity induced the formation of a company for the manufacture of sulphuric acid and super-phosphates. This company composed of Dr. Pratt, Mr. W. C. Bee, Robert Adger and Mr. Memminger; was chartered as the Sulphuric Acid and SuperPhosphate Company, which name was later changed to the Etiwan Phosphate Company, Mr. Memminger being made president and Dr. Pratt the chemist. On the 14th of December, 1868, the first acid chamber ever built south of Baltimore was in full operation. In an interesting article contributed by Dr. Pratt to Dixie, an industrial magazine published at Atlanta, Ga., he says that "this was the first company in the South to manufacture acid on a commercial scale-to-wit, 15,000 pounds per day," and that the manufacture "has continued from that time without interruption."

The operations of the Etiwan Company, thus launched as the pioneer of a grand industry, met with immediate and great success. Under the stimulus of this example, many others, upon the same plan, sprang rapidly up in its wake.

Thus was inaugurated, through the sound judgment and enterprising spirit of Mr. Memminger, in co-operation with

the skill of an eminent chemist, an enterprise which was but the forerunner of the many that have added immensely to the wealth and commerce of Charleston, while they have conferred a great boon upon the planting interests of the whole country. From this initial mill of the Etiwan Company there are now twenty-two companies in active operation in the vicinity of Charleston, manufacturing fertilizers and employing an aggregate capital of $4,500,000, while others, giving employment to many hundred hands, are mining and exporting the crude phosphate rock to foreign ports, the mines of South Carolina being the leading source of supply of phosphate for the world.

While the cares of his law office and the general supervision of the company, whose success was to be the precursor of a return of prosperity to his loved city, occupied his mind, Mr. Memminger was deeply concerned for the welfare of his State. Under the provisions of the "civil rights" act of Congress and of the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States, the recently liberated slaves were not only enfranchised, but were encouraged to assert the rights of citizenship thus conferred upon them in a manner that was constantly provoking the white citizens of the State to acts of violence. Under the administration of officers appointed from a recently victorious army, and who were supported in their authority by troops garrisoned throughout the State, a government was inaugurated, which in every feature was a disgrace to the power that sustained it and an outrage on the civilization of the age.

The vindictive spirit of the party in control of the government of the United States seemed to be exercised in order to heap upon the devoted people of South Carolina every indignity which malice or passion could suggest.

Ignorant negroes, inflamed by appeals to their impulsive natures, and misled by false and ridiculous promises, elected to every office, from governor to constable, men who

were either unprincipled adventurers, seeking only to better their fortunes, or the debauched native whose licentiousness was among the least of his vices, or the ignorant, the conceited or reckless among their own race. The capital of the proud old Commonwealth, where from the earliest colonial days had been reflected the virtues of the Cavalier and the Huguenot, had become the focal point of all that was mean, servile, and corrupt. The gown that had once been the recognized symbol of dignity, and the vestment of an incorruptible integrity, was unblushingly worn in the courts of the State by men whose claim to citizenship dated no farther back than to the coming of an army of invasion, and whose highest conception of duty was to enforce the measures of the political party in power. The College of the State, grand old alma-mater of statesmen, jurists, scholars and divines, a nursery in which wisdom and virtue had impressed their great truths upon the youth of the State through generations, was made a hot-bed in which to nourish the weeds of passion, prejudice, and spleen, and from which was disseminated among ignorant negroes, a false philosophy and a perverted history. Schoolhouses and academies, under State patronage and State supervision, were presided over by imported teachers, who, between the spelling-book and the black-board, would supplement their professed missionary work by endeavoring to fix in the young negro's mind a bitter hatred of the white people who were once their masters. Under varied pretexts the public treasury had been plundered and the public debt increased to such an extent that complete bankruptcy seemed to be the inevitable fate of the State.

Re

Such was the condition of South Carolina in 1876. volting as it may be to every honest person, this picture is not overdrawn.

Aroused by these outrages, the people of South Carolina, to whom had come by right of inheritance, a duty of citi