Book excerpt: Excerpt from The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 1889, Vol. 13 I declined your appointment as historian of the bar and bench of Allegheny County. I found that the admissions to this bar in 1863 had been six hundred and fifty. The correspondence and labor of collecting information and the compilation of even a partial number of sketches would ex tend over many months, resulting in a large book instead of a modest pamphlet appropriate to this occasion. I there fore undertook to furnish a few sketches only of promi nent lawyers of the last century and earlier years of this. Brief as these must be, they occupy a large space. But too much cannot be sacrificed to brevity. It would be to omit much that is interesting, and leave virtues, peculiarities, and true character often obscure. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.