Marshall County Republican. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1856-1878, 1873-03-13
Professional and Literary Incomes.

ONNOoAOA~@e@ j
DIR. Holland, in his s'Topics of the
Times" in the March Scri6ner, have
some strong words on the subject of
professional and literary incomes. He
protests almost bitterly over the advan-
tage in pecuniary returns the lawyers
and doctors have over editors, teachers,
clergymen and authors. These two
classes are paid in different ways-the
former by fees, the latter by salaries.
The men of fees, he says, are the physi-
clan and the lawyer. One has to do
with the physical diseases of men, and
the other with their legal quarrels and
their crimes. We do not, in the slight
est degree, dispraage the usefulness of
these two classes of professional men !;
we simply say that the better the other
class perform their work, the less they
have to do. They live upon the moral
and physical evils of the country; and
there is no reason in the nature of their
calling for their advantage in pecunary
rewards over the other classes. There
is no reason why a general practitioner
of medicine, or specialist in medicine
or surgery, should sit In his Office, and
take, in single fee, for service that
costs him fifteen minutes of time, sum
equal to that which teacher or cler-
gyman works all day to win. There is
no reason why physician, called into a
house in consultation, should charge for
his service a sum that it takes an editor
two days of hard work to earn. There
is no good reason for the setting of a
price upon a surgical operation, per-
formed in half an hour that the most
successful authors copyright cannot pay
In month. It is SIMPLIFY inexcusable
and outrageous. If we go from the
physician to the lawyer, we find still
higher fees. The simplest work, such
as searching titles, work that only de-
mands accuracy, and is usually done by
clerks, commands price that few men
can afford to pay, while larger work in
wolves fees that are startling and stu
pendous. Some of the incomes of law
yers In this city are large enough to
swallow up the salaries of dozen, or
twice that number, of salaried profess
sional men. The way in which the peo-
pie are bled in the process of securing
justice is often most shameful So
shameful is it, that thousands submit to
wrong rather than go into any litigation
whatever. People dread getting into a
lawyers hands as they dread getting
into the hands of New York hackman.
There are honorable and reasonable
lawyers, without doubt-men in whose
honor we may implicitly trust but there
are so many extortioners among them
that they have given bad flavor TO the
profession. There are systers and
scamps enough in New York. attached
to the profession, to sink it, We're it not
that there are noble men in it who are
unpurchasable. But lawyers fees are no.
toriously large as a rule, and altogether
outweigh the salaries of salaried profess
sional men.
DIR. Holland grows very vehement.
He thinks the large fees leave nothing
for adequate salaries. The salaried SER
wants of the community are wronged
There ought to be some remedy for
both evils. Where it is to be found we
do not know. The physician has some
apology for getting high fees of those
that can pay, because he is obliged to
do so much for the poor who cannot
pay but the lawyer, as a rule, does not
undertake case which promises him no
remuneration. He goes in for money
and there ought to be some law which
will enable the poor man to get justice
without financial ruin. There is, at
least, no good reason why one set of pro-
fessional men should half starve while
another gorges itself upon fees that
bring wealth and luxury. That fees are
too large and salaries too small has be-
come a popular conviction, which car
only be removed by reform in both
directions that shall bring literary and
professional men equivalent rewards.