Class of 1872

Augustine V. Barker came from his home in Bradentown, Fla., to his daughter Lovell s home at Williamsport, Pa., in August, and has spent about three months North, mainly there, though partly at his old home town, Ebensburg. On the 3d of October the Lawyers' Club of Cambria County had him as an honor guest at a dinner, he being the only living exjudge of Cambria County Court. As requested, he gave reminiscences of that court, and spoke easily, covering, in his delightful ramble back through the memories oi years, person after person, each with some little anecdote vividly portraying character or circumstance or events of long ago. M. D. Kettell, who came into practice of law under Judge Barker's fatherly guidance, among other remarks said: "When Barker became judge I remember with what patience and care he heard all, how quick he was to detect those who attempted to dissimulate or deceive. He was careful in opinions, so careful that he established a record unequaled in the Supreme Court of the state. In the eleven years he presided I think he was reversed but three times." The judge has a very tenacious trouble, asthma, but he manages to secure some comfortable periods when his enemy is off duty, and then he encourages others to "cheer up," as though he himself were "o'er all the ills of life victorious."

George H. Fletcher, the closest, to youthfulness of all surviving members, reported May 13, 1925, that he had but recently returned from a trip abroad in quite good health. He left New York February 5, visiting Europe, Asia, and Africa, spending more time in Africa than elsewhere, having an unusually fine vacation with comfortable weather with a single days exception. "Traveling among the Arabs was as comfortable as in this country and of course more educational." The most time was spent in Algeria, Tunis, and Egypt, with some experience in the deserts, and he visited Athens, Constantinople, and Palestine. He spent one day in the Valley of the Kings, _ where the heat and flies were so serious an infliction as "almost to make them envy King Tut and the other Egyptian kings, whose peace in the grave was comfort to this experience."

Asa M. French of Corpus Christi, Texas, May 6, reported his health as the same, so far as he could see, as in July and August, 1923, when we met in New Hampshire. Having reached the age of seventy in March, 1920, he thought he would put to test the old saw, "A man is just as old as he feels or thinks he is," so since then, he writes, he has seen no reason to call himself other than seventy. Accordingly this year a guaranty title company of his city considered his immaturity in years no disqualifying obstacle to producing a plate, four feet by six in size, from an old map, to be corrected by him down to date. The whole affair occupied his eyes and mind some 85 days, and one of the innumerable copies of the result is before me, named "Map of the Gateway of the Southwest, Showing Land Subdivisions in the Rich Valley of the Nueces." Besides large tracts of and in several adjacent counties, the map covers the waters from Aransas Pass to Corpus Christi. The amount of close eye-work in perfect y accurate production of details ad infinitum, such as appear in this result, is quite marvelous. Asa appealed to the Secretary for judgment as to the condition of his eyes and their endurance The judgment is, that oculists and opticians would starve if such marvelous eyes were general. It will be some years before he can justify crediting himself with being practically over seventy years of age.

Dr. S. R. Towne of Omaha, Neb., suffered the loss of his only son, Robert S., April 28, 1925, dying of a hemorrhage of the lungs in Denver, where he was serving as express claim agent for Colorado. Since 1915 his son had waged a brave battle against tuberculosis, and at times had improved so as to keep to his work. He left a widow and two daughters and the record of a delightful character. Dr. Towne's youngest daughter, Mrs. Alice T. Deweese, of Lincoln, Neb., was a candidate for regent of Nebraska University at the primaries, April 8, 1925. In a letter from the Doctor, September 8, he spoke of his chief occupation of "standing by and taking steps about the place," meaning in his modest way that he is devotedly ministering to the inability of his wife to move about on account of a bad accident that she met in 1916, making walking impossible most of the time, even with a cane. The Doctor is very well and so is his wife.

Secretary, Nashua, N. H.