Memoir of John Howe Peyton / in sketches by his contemporaries, together with some of his public and private letters, etc., also a sketch of Ann M. Peyton

by Unknown

PROTECTS A WEAK MINDED GIRL.

I remember Mr. Peyton's personal appearance and manners well. He made a great impression on me as a youth and I never knew any man who had more of what Edmund Burke styled the "chastity of honor, which felt a stain like a wound." His humanity and sense of right were deeply aroused in a case which occurred in Bath county in 1842, in which a man for speculative purposes sought to take the person and property of a girl of weak mind from the custody of her brothers. He was represented by John W. Brockenbrough, afterwards United States Judge for Western Virginia. Mr. Peyton appeared for the girl and her brothers and in opposition to the proposition made by Brockenbrough's client delivered an impromptu speech in which the mean, selfish, cruel and avaricious nature of the proposition was so clearly and mercilessly exposed that Brockenbrough did not even attempt to reply, and the presiding Judge E. S. Duncan, a half-brother of Judge John J. Allen, dec'd, instantly decided that the custody of the girl and her property should remain in the hands of her brothers. It was evident that Mr. Peyton's high and generous nature was filled with indignation at what he regarded as a most atrocious proposition, and he spoke with an animation, warmth and energy, probably never exceeded in any other effort of his long and distinguished professional career.

Senex.

Spectator, 1891.