There is also a moral to the story, which is more instructive than pleasant. The actors in the case no doubt believed that if they set about their work in a conservative and law-abiding way, spending only as much money as could be raised, Congress would never come to their help. So they determined to force the game, by creating a situation which would speedily lead to the correct solution of the problem. I do not think any observant person will contest the proposition that had Shepherd gone about his work and carried it to a successful conclusion in a peaceable and law-abiding way,—had he done nothing to excite public attention except wisely and successfully to administer a great public work,—his name would now have been as little remembered in connection with what he did as we remember those of Ketchem, Phelps, and the other men who repaired the wreck he left and made the city what it is to-day.
In my mind one question dominates all others growing out of the case: What will be the moral effect on our children of holding up for their imitation such methods as I have described?
XIII
MISCELLANEA
If the "Great Star-Catalogue Case" is not surrounded with such mystery as would entitle it to a place among causes célèbres, it may well be so classed on account of the novelty of the questions at issue. It affords an instructive example of the possibility of cases in which strict justice cannot be done through the established forms of legal procedure. It is also of scientific interest because, although the question was a novel one to come before a court, it belongs to a class which every leader in scientific investigation must constantly encounter in meting out due credit to his assistants.
The plaintiff, Christian H. F. Peters, was a Dane by birth, and graduated at the University of Berlin in 1836. During the earlier years of his manhood he was engaged in the trigonometrical survey of the kingdom of Naples, where, for a time, he had charge of an observatory or some other astronomical station. It is said that, like many other able European youth of the period, he was implicated in the revolution of 1848, and had to flee the kingdom in consequence. Five years later, he came to the United States. Here his first patron was Dr. B. A. Gould, who procured for him first a position on the Coast Survey, and then one as his assistant at the Dudley Observatory in Albany. He was soon afterward appointed professor of astronomy and director of the Litchfield Observatory at Hamilton College, where he spent the remaining thirty years of his life. He was a man of great learning, not only in subjects pertaining to astronomy, but in ancient and modern languages. The means at his disposal were naturally of the slenderest kind; but he was the discoverer of some forty asteroids, and devoted himself to various astronomical works and researches with great ability.
Of his personality it may be said that it was extremely agreeable so long as no important differences arose. What it would be in such a case can be judged by what follows. Those traits of character which in men like him may be smoothed down to a greater or less extent by marital discipline were, in the absence of any such agency, maintained in all their strength to his latest years.
The defendant, Charles A. Borst, was a graduate of the college and had been a favorite pupil of Peters. He was a man of extraordinary energy and working capacity, ready to take hold in a business-like way of any problem presented to him, but not an adept at making problems for himself. His power of assimilating learning was unusually developed; and this, combined with orderly business habits, made him a most effective and valuable assistant. The terms of his employment were of the first importance in the case. Mr. Litchfield of New York was the patron of the observatory; he had given the trustees of Hamilton College a capital for its support, which sufficed to pay the small salary of the director and some current expenses, and he also, when the latter needed an assistant, made provision for his employment. It appears that, in the case of Borst, Peters frequently paid his salary for considerable periods at a time, which sums were afterward reimbursed to him by Mr. Litchfield.
I shall endeavor to state the most essential facts involved as they appear from a combination of the sometimes widely different claims of the two parties, with the hope of showing fairly what they were, but without expecting to satisfy a partisan of either side. Where an important difference of statement is irreconcilable, I shall point it out.
In his observations of asteroids Peters was continually obliged to search through the pages of astronomical literature to find whether the stars he was using in observation had ever been catalogued. He long thought that it would be a good piece of work to search all the astronomical journals and miscellaneous collections of observations with a view of making a complete catalogue of the positions of the thousands of stars which they contained, and publishing it in a single volume for the use of astronomers situated as he was. The work of doing this was little more than one of routine search and calculation, which any well-trained youth could take up; but it was naturally quite without the power of Peters to carry it through with his own hand. He had employed at least one former assistant on the work, Professor John G. Porter, but very little progress was made. Now, however, he had a man with the persistence and working capacity necessary to carry out the plan.