“When you have practiced law thirty years, man and boy, as I have, you will know that any business that requires the presence of five or six business men at a given time and place, is of indefinite duration, and if those men are five hundred miles apart, the indefiniteness becomes definitely long, at least. You know there is to be an organization of the new Witenagemote after March 4, so that if we wait for Mr. Russell, we can have no hearing this winter. I know of no objection to Mr. Hampden.”
M. N. TO H., P., & CO.
“I cannot say that it is ‘satisfactory,’ because nothing can be really satisfactory to me but an immediate and pacific settlement of my claims.
“To Mr. Hampden I have no personal objection whatever, but I seem to recollect, when we were all living in Paradise, before the fall, having heard Mr. Hampden spoken of by Mr. Hunt as a paper-manufacturer, with whom you had large dealings. If so would it not be almost too much to expect of human nature that it should be strictly impartial under such circumstances? I simply make the suggestion, not even being sure that it is ‘founded on fact.’
“The choosing of a third person I should leave entirely with the two chosen. If they think a third unnecessary so much the better. I should certainly think two fair-minded, unprejudiced persons might get at the truth without recourse to a third.”
H., P., & CO. TO M. N., JANUARY 26.
“Our business relations with the firm of which Hon. G. W. Hampden is the head, have been for the last three or four years of the most insignificant amount, certainly not of a nature to warp his judgment in our favor. Besides Mr. Hampden is, like Mr. Russell, too honorable a man [still harping on my honor] to accept the position of a judge where his prejudices are enlisted.
“We do not understand from your letter that you object to Mr. Hampden. On hearing from you we will write to Mr. Russell, and say that the Reference only waits his convenience.”
M. N. TO H., P., & CO., FEBRUARY 1.
“I am advised—and the advice is in accordance with my own opinion—that I have no right to object to your choice, unless the person chosen be so undesirable that I decline arbitration rather than accept him as arbitrator. This certainly is not true in the case of Mr. Hampden. I have given you my only reason for objecting to him. Since you assure me this reason does not exist, I withdraw my objection.”