The Reminiscences of an Astronomer

by Simon Newcomb

There was an irreconcilable difference between the two parties as to the terms on which Borst went to work. According to the latter, Peters suggested to him the credit which a young man would gain as one of the motives for taking up the job. But plaintiff denied that he had done anything more than order him to do it. He did not, however, make it clear why an assistant at the Litchfield Observatory should be officially ordered to do a piece of work for the use of astronomy generally, and having no special connection with the Litchfield Observatory.

However this may be, Borst went vigorously to work, repeating all the calculations which had been made by Peters and former assistants, with a view of detecting errors, and took the work home with him in order that his sisters might make a great mass of supplementary calculations which, though not involved in the original plan, would be very conducive to the usefulness of the result. One or two of these bright young ladies worked for about a year at the job. How far Peters was privy to what they did was not clear; according to his claim he did not authorize their employment to do anything but copy the catalogue.

By the joint efforts of the assistant and his two sisters, working mostly or entirely at their own home, the work was brought substantially to a conclusion about the beginning of 1888. Borst then reported the completion to his chief and submitted a proposed title-page, which represented that the work was performed by Charles A. Borst under the direction of Christian H. F. Peters, Professor of Astronomy, etc. According to Borst's account, Peters tore up the paper, opened the stove door, put the fragments into the fire, and then turned on the assistant with the simple order, "Bring me the catalogue!"

This was refused, and a suit in replevin was immediately instituted by Peters. The ablest counsel were engaged on both sides. That of the plaintiff was Mr. Elihu Root, of New York, afterward Secretary of War, one of the leading members of the New York bar, and well known as an active member of the reform branch of the Republican party of that city. For the defendant was the law firm of an ex-senator of the United States, the Messrs. Kernan of Utica.

I think the taking of evidence and the hearing of arguments occupied more than a week. One claim of the defendant would, if accepted, have brought the suit to a speedy end. Peters was an employee of the corporation of Hamilton College, and by the terms of his appointment all his work at the Litchfield Observatory belonged to that institution. Borst was summoned into the case as an official employee of the Litchfield Observatory. Therefore the corporation of the college was the only authority which had power to bring the suit. But this point was disposed of by a decision of the judge that it was not reasonable, in view of the low salary received by the plaintiff, to deprive him of the right to the creations of his own talent. He did not, however, apply this principle of legal interpretation to the case of the defendant, and not only found for the plaintiff, but awarded damages based on the supposed value of the work, including, if I understand the case aright, the value of the work done by the young ladies. It would seem, however, that in officially perfecting the details of his decision he left it a little indefinite as to what papers the plaintiff was entitled to, it being very difficult to describe in detail papers many of which he had never seen. Altogether it may be feared that the decision treated the catalogue much as the infant was treated by the decision of Solomon.

However this might he, the decision completely denied any right of the defendant in the work. This feature of it I thought very unjust, and published in a Utica paper a review of the case in terms not quite so judicial as I ought to have chosen. I should have thought such a criticism quite a breach of propriety, and therefore would never have ventured upon it but for an eminent example then fresh in my mind.

Shortly after the Supreme Court of the United States uttered its celebrated decision upholding the constitutionality of the Legal Tender Act, I happened to be conversing at an afternoon reception with one of the judges, Gray, who had sustained the decision. Mr. George Bancroft, the historian, stepped up, and quite surprised me by expressing to the judge in quite vigorous language his strong dissent from the decision. He soon afterward published a pamphlet reviewing it adversely. I supposed that what Mr. Bancroft might do with a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, a humbler individual might be allowed to do with the decision of a local New York judge.

The defense appealed the case to a higher court of three judges, where the finding of the lower court was sustained by a majority of two to one. It was then carried to the Court of Appeals, the highest in the State. Here the decision was set aside on what seemed to me the common sense ground that the court had ignored the rights of the defendant in the case, who certainly had some, and it must therefore be remanded for a new trial.

Meantime Peters had died; and it is painful to think that his death may have been accelerated by the annoyances growing out of the suit. One morning, in the summer of 1890, he was found dead on the steps of his little dwelling, having apparently fallen in a fit of apoplexy or heart failure as he was on his way to the observatory the night before. His heirs had no possible object in pushing the suit; probably his entire little fortune was absorbed in the attendant expenses.

When the difference with Borst was first heard of it was, I think, proposed to Peters by several of his friends, including myself, that the matter should be submitted to an arbitration of astronomers. But he would listen to nothing of the sort. He was determined to enforce his legal rights by legal measures. A court of law was, in such a case, at an enormous disadvantage, as compared with an astronomical board of arbitration. To the latter all the circumstances would have been familiar and simple, while the voluminous evidence, elucidated as it was by the arguments of counsel on the two sides, failed to completely enlighten the court on the points at issue. One circumstance will illustrate this. Some allusion was made during the trial to Peters's work while he was abroad, in investigating the various manuscripts of the Almagest of Ptolemy and preparing a commentary and revised edition of Ptolemy's Catalogue of Stars. This would have been an extremely important and original work, most valuable in the history of ancient astronomy. But the judge got it mixed up in his mind with the work before the court, and actually supposed that Peters spent his time in Europe in searching ancient manuscripts to get material for the catalogue in question. He also attributed great importance to the conception of the catalogue, forgetting that, to use the simile of a writer in the "New York Evening Post," such a conception was of no more value than the conception of a railroad from one town to another by a man who had no capital to build it. No original investigation was required on one side or the other. It was simply a huge piece of work done by a young man with help from his sisters, suggested by Peters, and now and then revised by him in its details. It seemed to me that the solution offered by Borst was eminently proper, and I was willing to say so, probably at the expense of Peters's friendship, on which I set a high value.