The latter are the more discouraging. In one, I met a fellow who ten years ago had been the most prominent undergraduate at New Haven. He apologized for offering no salary and thought the law "laborer worthy of his hire." The work he could offer was of uncertain character; often there might not be much of anything to do. An hour or two each day must be devoted to keeping the office record; work which, though wearying, might be excellent instruction; then, there were errands to the clerks and courts. Some one has suggested that it is hard to get up the ladder, because of old fellows near the top who block the way coming down. There are many lawyers in New York who give not more than half the six hours daily which Sir William Jones advises for the law. Pride and the bitterness of leaving so much legal wisdom and cunning, make them lag after their force is spent. One of our great legal writers, at seventyfive and blind, learned, as I know, all the French irregular verbs because he came up on one which confused him. Judge D , long past the good Book's three score and ten, as much the law on his subject as a text writer can be in a common law country, has an office somewhat removed from the furi ous rush of the main streets. It is fitted with the dingiest of furnishings—a setting in which one would picture Sergeant Buzfuz. This tenant, however, has better work than the defense of unfortunate Pickwicks; some of the most powerful corporations in the country would refuse an instrument on the strength of his imprimatur. "I can't learn that wretched code," said one of these old gentlemen. "To try, is a prostitution of the human intellect." His son had taken me into the room where the learned counsel was occupied with the signing of checks his secretary placed before him, and with having his shoes polished at the same moment—the time-saving habit
still a part of him, though needless now as a horse's -fifth toe. "Father, this is Mr. Murray 'and—" "I don't give a damn if it is," he burst out with the peevishness of an old man. "At least," he went on more mildly, with a charm ing smile, "until I've finished this business." Then to his secretary, in reference to his writ ing, "Pretty shaky, today, ain't it?" 1 supposed he had forgotten my presence,. but in a moment he whirled about and as tonished me by telling my home city and the minutiae of my college and law school courses. Here was the nearest approach to the kindergarten for law students, the ex istence of which, in New York, Bramwell had denied. It is his greatest pleasure to have fellows from the Harvard Law School consult him about an office. As a matter of fact, he has placed many of the now promin ent attorneys in New York; even Bramwell and his brilliant colleague are "his boys." And the firm which bears and will bear his name is hardly worse than the best in New York. (This custom of keeping an old firm name, by the way, led a student on one oc casion to ask to see a partner who had been dead some fifteen years.) If you chance to look through the Su preme Court reports of the past forty years,. and into the reported cases in State courts of highest resort, you will find one name con stantly recurring in the list of counsel. Its owner is one of say three men, of whom you could say none is leader of the New York trial bar—because of the others. The great barrister must have won judges and juries entirely by his remarkable intellect; he has used the cross-bow, argument, in the famous comparison of Lord Bacon, and not the long bow of persuasion, which depends on the man; for his manner is cold and austere. A smile that should have been charming is hardened by cynicism, and the great advo cate speaks with indifference and sometimeswith bitterness.
