The Davenport gazette. [volume] (Davenport, Scott Co., Iowa) 1841-185?, 1853-06-23
Lawyers and LAWYERS Fees.


the dealings of lawyers:
We not only respect lawyers, but have :
lively admiration for them. Who evel
heard of one Of them taking fee in an un
Just cause! or doing a hard-hearted thing
or saying what he did not believe. or en-.
couraging litigation! or misrepresentlng ey
idence to the jury! or brow-beating mod
est witness. or saving william by lega
public quibble! De Tockqueville rightly says
they are the aristocracy, that is, the best
men in the United States. Our own OBJ
servaton of them is founded on large ey-
perience of their virtues. Let us call up
| for moment, on our pleasantest memories
of the past, the images Of few lawyers Of
our own acquaintance.
There is our friend at Columbus, Missis-
sippi, who never varies from his scale Of
charges, even for friends. We sent him
once for collection, bill of nine dollars a.
gainst a subscriber. He collected it the
same day. and sent us, by return mail, his
own bill for fee Of fifteen dollars, with a
polite dun for the unpaid balance of six
We remitted instanter, thanking him for his
promptness.
Then. there is the eminent councillor, at
Lake Providence, who charged us two hun
dred dollars for bill of exchange for two
thousand, which had been paid on presen-
taton. We demonstrated, and he consol-
ed us for not having collected through a
bank, by the assurance, that if professional
etiquette did not forbid, he would certainly
reduce his original charge, which he was
kind enough to admit was rather too heavy.
A still better man was Texas lawyer, to
In nto
on an arrangement called the ''halves," very
common in that part of the country. A ia
catious dog was SIN tn. About eighteen
months elapsed without our hearing from
him. he then wrote us. in answer to our
twentieth epistle, that he had done remark
ably well with the claim having compromised
it for half the value of the property; that
he had pocketed the half for his fee; and that
we were really not indebted to him besides
the costs of a suit he had commenced and
discontinued We could have fairly hug
eed the fellow for his gay and careless hu-
NOR.
He did not give us halfthe trouble we had
with a lawyer in Jefferson City. who had
collected for Us claim of several hundred.
Punctual as correspondent, he advised US,
by the first mail, of the receipt Of the mon
ey adding that the mails were made very
irregular by the overhowing of the river,
and he did not think it safe to remit. We
waited until summertime, until one could
almost wade the upper Missouri. The riv-
er was so low then, he said, that he found it
extremely inconvenient to get his paper to
the bank where he usually had it cashed
Two seasons passed by, and the nnumera-
l 1,
renting, drafts and inundations. At last.
being in need of funds, we wrote that we
must insist on having the money ,irresDec ctiYe
Of the ,isttitre at heart, and sent it, forget
TING to add the two years interest, but de-
ducting twelve per cent for his fee.
LAWYERS will be little lazy sometimes;
but can we blame man for physical inapt-
ness Of activity! The LATEST one we ever
knew lived at Shawneetown, Illinois, he
had promised, for year or two, to remit to
Louisville some money he had collected for
us. Business-like demands, cajolery, persua-
sion, argument and menace had no effect
Oh him. He would write no more. At last
we sent him in full the anecdote of the man
who was so lazy that he ate apples off the
tree, not being energetic enough to raise
his hand to pluck them. This touched the
right spot, and he reused himself so far as
to send us the money The effort may
have killed him; for we have never heard of
him since.
In no profession is there more chival-
rous sense of honor than that Of the law.
We have a lively remembrance of having
been long kept in constant bodily fear by a
lawyer of Little Rock, Arkansas. He had
maintained most obstinate silence for more
than year after receiving for us the full a.
mount for claim. To a letter in which we
demanded an immediate and satisfactory ad-
iustment of the matter, he answered that
our former letters were too Yankee-like, but
he was ready to give us satisfaction at once;
he ended by requesting as to name our
friends and weapons, as he would come on
and fight us on our own ground. We wrote
him, by return mail, to put a Pickwickian
on the offensive letter. After
applying to some forty lawyers to collect |
the claim from our belligerent attorney-atl
Of them refusing the business on the plea OF
professional delcacy-we succeeded in re-
tanning one, on a promise oftwenty per cent. |
As the warlike ones charge was twelve,
sixty-eght per cent was all that ever came
in our possession.
The New York lawyers are noble and
dashng practitioners. Marmion never char
ged more spirtedly 1t was only the other
day one of them sent us a bill Of sixty dol
lars for seeing to deposition of few
lines to prove the style of firm, adding
that he would retain the deposition until
the bill was paid. We hope he will find it
good property; we paid five for taking anoth-
1r.
But we have said enough. Our readers
may think of our articles as Mr.. Brown does
Of newspaper criticisms on the bar-that sit
is time this thing was stopped" We have
shown why and how we admire lawyers.
Should any of them dissent from our views,
we will fee another to dispute with him.
Why not! Does not the accepted theory |
make of a lawyer Il moral gladiator, with ito
let on his forehead! Does any one feel,
when listening to forensic eloquence, that
there is a man behind it
Cherries without stones have been pro-
duced in France by the following method
II Fla Spr;p,r hafnrn the circulation of the /