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1876 it was proposed to make her a member of the National Medical Association, being the first woman proposed for this honor, and she was elected.

She has been prominently identified with the progress of the great city in many ways pertaining to her profession, such as the Woman's College, Home for Incurables, Training School for Nurses, and various hospitals. At present she occupies the chair of obstetrics in the Woman's Medical College, is attending physician of the Woman's Hospital, attending physician of the Hospital for Women and Children, gynæcologist and obstetrician of Cook county Hospital, chairman of the hospital committee of the Illinois Training School for Nurses, member of the American Medical Association, member of the Illinois State Medical Society, member of Chicago Medical Society, member of the Mississippi Valley Medical Society, and Chicago Medico Legal Society.

Meanwhile Dr. Stevenson has accomplished much in a literary way, her work being largely in the form. of essays and papers in connection with the Fortnightly and Woman's Clubs of Chicago, of which she is an active member.

Industrious, enthusiastic, and direct as a student, and hence of necessity well informed as to what the books tell her of her profession, still, no one will ever think of her as a bookish woman" because in adopting the

ideas of others they become her own, and in restating them her words, manner and application indicate that she is not quoting authority, but that she is presenting the living thoughts.

of her own intellect.

Dr. Stevenson's dynamic vitality, clear perceptions and indomitable industry, are directed by an unusually persistent and concentrated will, which would render her arbitrary, if it were not for her kindliness of disposition. and abundant sympathy. All these qualities of intellect and affection are the elements of her success, socially and professionally.

While she is naturally succesful in her professional practice in a general way, she is especially fortunate in her treatment of all those ailments in which keen insight, ready tact, delicate operation, and ministry to mind and morals are effective elements of cure. Her sense of justice and her warm sympathy with the needy and the suffering, frequently war with each other-each by turns gaining the temporary mastery, but her reverence of all she deems sacred will not allow either one or the other to get far from the true line of sweet mercy with stern justice.

Dr. Stevenson is a true worker. Her abilities and industry must render her successful. She is of necessity useful in her profession, but in the larger field of arousing others to work, directing their operations, and thus multiplying herself, she will have still grander success.

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The work upon various institutions for the amelioration of the condition of mankind, is in the beginning slow and difficult to carry; later when the work begins to reflect great credit upon those interested, it is carried forward by its own impetus and gains supporters even from its earlier detractors.

In many of those institutions which are to-day the crown of Chicago's benevolence and philanthropy, the first organization shows a small number of well known names, and among these stands frequently that of Dr. Stevenson. The influence of a physician knows no limit-not only is it

often the breath of life to the individual, but in the community, it stands for right living, for the righteousness that means health mentally, physically, and morally. For this, women welcome representatives of their sex who, trained scientifically, can lend to the public weal the weight of that conservative element in the social world, the vast number of women who otherwise have no voice.

With a name known already beyond her own country, American women can well be proud of one who is in many ways the representative of all they hold dear and who has never failed to honor her high calling.

THE

BENCH AND BAR OF

CHICAGO.

LAWYERS WHO PRACTICED IN THE

COURTS OF THE CITY FIFTY YEARS AGO.

PROBABLY for the same reason that those persons who were adult residents of Chicago prior to 1840 have, by common consent, been styled the "old settlers" of the city, the men who were engaged here in the practice of law prior to that date have always been accounted the "pioneers" of the Chicago bar. Just why the line should have been drawn at 1840 is not clearly apparent in either instance, but there can be no question as to the right of those who established themselves here during the

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It may be of interest first to note the fact that with three or four exceptions all the lawyers who became identified with the Chicago bar prior to 1840 were from the eastern States, and New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont were the States making the most generous contributions of legal talent. Only a small number of the pioneers were men who, even at that period, would have been termed liberally educated men, and the great majority of them were men who, in one way or another, educated themselves.

Russell Heacock, the first lawyer to locate here, had learned the carpenter's trade before he began the study of law. He was born in Connecticut, and when he first came west located in St. Louis. From there he came to Chicago, where he practiced law until 1849, when he fell a victim to the cholera epidemic of that year.

Richard J. Hamilton, the second lawyer to locate in Chicago, was a Kentuckian by birth, whose career in Chicago has been previously noticed in this series of articles. An extended biographical sketch of Hon. John D. Caton, who came a few years later, has also been published in this connection. Judge Caton's most active competitor, in fact, his only active competitor when he began practicing in Chicago-Messrs. Heacock and Hamilton being at that time busied with non-professional affairswas Giles Spring, one of the most noted of the pioneer lawyers. He

was born in Massachusetts, and read law in Ohio with Benjamin F. Wade and Joshua R. Giddings, when those two distinguished men were practicing together in the Western Reserve of the Buckeye State.

Spring's education was faulty, but a fair estimate of his ability as a lawyer has been left on record by a contemporary, who declares that "he was a phenomenon," and then goes on to say: "He was a natural born lawyer. His education was quite limited, and he paid little attention to the rules of grammar; yet he could present a point of law to the court and argue the facts of a case to the jury with a clearness and force seldom equalled. He seemed sometimes to have an intuitive knowledge of the law and mastery of its profoundest and most subtle principles. His brain worked with the rapidity of lightning and with the force of an engine. In argument he possessed a keenness of analysis, a force of compact, crushing logic which bore down all opposition. His language, though sometimes homely, was always forcible, and strongly expressive of thought. He was firm in attack, but not often offensive. His most astounding powers were exhibited when some new ques. tion arose in the progress of a trial. However suddenly it might be sprung and however grave or abstruse in character, he would instantly, and seemingly by a flash of intuition, grasp it with a skill and mastery of legal learning, which seemed possible

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