Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1886-07-29
be, he ought to be bishop. H


lily council assembled, for the doctor
was really much beloved by all his con-
nections; and his wife had so couched
her request for advice that it was ire
| sistible. On keen March day, uncles,
cousins and friends met; and after din
ing at the Doctors hospitable table,
they began to consider what career
would be most likely to assure Tom of a
happy and prosperous future. The
reverend cousin presided, at the general
request; and he opened the subject as
follows:
"When I got the letter which has
brought me here to-day, felt its appeal
so strongly that l made immediate ar
rangements to be present. Tom has al
| ways been an exemplary boy in con-
duct, though must say his progress in
the classics is deplorably slow. When
| was his age, l read Homer for the
pleasure it gave me; and had Horace
| by heart. Now, a scholar Tom never
will be; of that l have satisfied myself
before dinner in private talk with
him. Well, the ground is so far
cleared. Tom can not be scholar,
ergo. he can not be clergyman;
for of all things inappropriate, in my
my opinion, the extreme is an igno, ant
divine. In my profession, one ought to
be stepped in Greek, permeated with
Latin, and saturated with Hebrew. But
even if Tom were born student and
of a serious order of mind, | could not
advise his parents to devote him to the
Church,
Something like blank fell on Tom 8
mother at the emphatic closure of the
reverend Cousins speech. She had
hoped that Tom might have gone to Ok
ford, as other grammar-school boys had
done, and thence to some pretty rectory
as rural parson. While she sat in
silent depression, the rest of the COM
pany talked in little knots, until the
reverend president stopped them by say
ing: '.Now, Uncle John, l call upon
you. No one is better able to say if the
law promises fame and fortune for the
rising generation, as it has done for the
past generations since Cicero's time.
Shall we make Tom an attorney Or a
barrster?'
Il am fattered by the manner you
esteem my humble Abilities" answered
uncle. John. cit is strange coinci-
dence of thought. | have also come
down from town expressly to deprecate
the putting of our young hopeful to mig
profession. | believe | could lay my
reasons before my brother and his good
wife better by few spoken words, than
by any extent of correspondence; so l
| took an early train. Tom must not be
a lawyer. Why, proceed as briefly as
can to explain. First, the pro-
fession is more crowded than
the market-place. Second, the crowd is
daily increasing, because most every
family of the middle classes that has
thriven during the past twenty or thirty
years is sending boy into a solicitors
office. The business is supposed to be
very lucrative, and it is esteemed highly
respectable. which allures the parCenu
mind. AS to the fiction of the law be-
ing a lucrative pursuit, l can not I'M
derstand how it originated, still less
how it is ma ntained. A few solicitors.
with quite exceptional luck and good
connections, may attain to Opulence.
But the rank and file of the profession
merely earn Il decent livelihood If
YOU want to know what fortune does
for lawyers in England, read the re-
port of wills and requests in the news
papers. While these are telling us of
manuf icturing, banking and trading
millionares dying in all parts of the
country, they rarely record the demise
of lawyer worth twenty thousand
pounds. No, no; the law is not a
monev-making trade. But it will be
still less so, and that is why l warn
Toms parents against it.
'Let me elaborate a little. Since l
was put on the rolls. Law Reform, as it
is pleasantly called by certain politi-
clans, has been hacking away at our
fees continually, until now, certain
branches of the profession are no longer
remunerative at all. County courts,
for instance, have deprived me of hun
dreds year. The Judicature act has
damaged my practice still more seri-
ously. However. l am not here
to dwell upon my own mis-
| fortunes, but to prevent nv
nephew Tom from having worse by fol-
lowing in my footsteps. Past law re-
forms are trifles to what are coming!
| In a few, years, the most respectable and
| valuable department of my profession
will be simply worthless. l refer to
conveyancing. Even now, it is sadly
shorn of its former profitableness. Soon
it will be non est. Registration of titles
is bound to come; with it goes the old
system of mortgage deeds and all the
costly methods of land transfer. AS in
America and the colonies, the tranfer of
real estate will be merely the business of
government officials, and the vendor
and purchaser; lawyers will be elimin-
atcd from such attractions altogether.
| Then, as regards commercial cases
/ Chambers of Commerce will 90 on with
the simple methods of arbitration and
Cancellation, until at last the courts will
-
than if such did not exist.
LAST and worst of all. there is grow
ing steady adherence of legal con-
fiicts in all ranks and classes. When |
was apprenticed, even the poorest fell
low would rush into law against a
neighbor or relative with the greatest
confidence; ay, and be ruined with a
sort of grim satisfaction. In those days,
every body delighted in law. Now, if l
am not vastly wide of the mark, men
will submit to the rankest frauds and
personal assaults as meekly as the most
abiect Asiatics. Yes, really, the En-
gljsh race, once litigious to a degree, is
most trumperv suit in the inferior
courts. Finally. the lowest of our bust
ness, that of the criminal courts, is
dwindling into insignificance. Judges
are holiday making in maiden as
sizes all over the country; police
stipendiaries are becoming sinecurists.
What with popular education, milder
manners, law reforms, land reforms,
and the rest, no man would think of
putting a youngster into the fast decay
ing legal profession.
Uncle John spoke with such evident
and crushing sincerity that Toms father