1931 Old Waldorf Bar Days by Albert Stevens Crockett

Faculty and Proctors men of bar history, Johnnie, in his personal habits, was one of the strictest professors of prohibition that never lectured on a platform, nor tried to dictate the habits of their fellow-men. He was a teetotaler. He never took a drink in his life, and he never smoked. The Solon family is one of real antiquity, the earliest Solon of whom the_re is record antedating any of the O'Briens, O'Tooles, O'Flahertys, or any other Gaelic kings, runed or crooned. H?wever, this statement is made in some apprehe~sion, though the Solon of whom mention is now made, has had a date pinned on to him by history, between 639 and 559 B. C., which was some time before St. Patrick thought of Ireland and snakes. Solon, a Greek, was famous as a law-giver, and as such has been much esteemed by ancients and moderns called to another bar, which, except for those inconveniences incidental to the discovery of a dependable bootlegger, has not seemed to have suffered appreciably from any prohibi'i:ory ban. Particularly was that ancient cham– pion of the rights of the people, and himself a sort of early vox populi, an authority on debts· and debtors. Research indicates that that particular Solon was ap– parently the first of the name, because·his father bore the appellation "Execestibes," and he was descended from the noble line of the Codrids, which may or may not be the English pronunciation of O'Connor-or, pos– sibly Cavanaugh. At least, a people that, even when sober, make Magdalen "Maudlin" and Cholmondeley "Chumley," might do even worse with a good old Irish name. Look what they did with Uisgebeatha! As to whether the original Solon or one of his descend- [ 77]