The Arizona sentinel., 1886-07-03
A GLIMPSE OF I786.
A Critical Period for the Legal Profession
 of Massachusetts.


 Much light is thrown upon the social condition and the political temper of the people by the proceedings of the county conventions and the lists of grievances enumerated by those assem- blages But perhaps there is no part of the story of the eventful year under view more remarkable than that which has to do with the raid against the legal profession. It was all the work of one man, sending anonymous communica- tions to Boston newspaper. Early in the year an article signed "Honestus" appeared in the Independent Chronicle, ascribing to the lawyers some of the evils under which the community was suffering. The article seems to have attracted some attention and the author soon followed it with another, in which the 'order of lawyers" was moro pointedly assailed. Presently the att tack drew forth from merchant word in defense of the lawyers. 'tHonestus" thereupon replied. ard the prosecution of his original plan and his cOntro- versies with defenders of the legal pro- fession occupied large share of the public notice and a great many columns in the Chronicle.
 "Honestus'' was MT. Ben iamin Aus tin, very ardent politician and very persistent writer from the time of the revolution until, in Jefferson's adminis- tration, his writings caused indirectly most lamentable tragedy and the death of his own son. More dreary, inconse- quential and altogether absurd reading was never printed than were those arti- cleS against the lawyers. It is almost incredible that they could have had an effect upon the community, but they did. ''Honestus'' charged the lawyers with thrusting themselves in large num- bers into the legislature, and there eX- erting an undue influence in the making of laws by the administration of which they were afterwards to profit. Yet the whole ''order of lawyers in Massachu- setts, in 17S6, comprised but eighty-one members; and in a House of Repre- sentatives numbering two hundred and fifteen, only nine were lawyers, while but one member of the profession was a representative for Boston.
 The accusations against the lawyers were for the most part vague, general and unsupported by facts. At first no one thought it worth while to reply to them, but when it began to appear that the writer was making an impression upon the public mind, one and another took up the cudgels in behalf of the ma ligned profession. "Honestus" met his antagonists in manner which forces one to think that very good lawyer of a certain sort was spoiled when he chose commerce for vocation. The first reply to his assertions was a con- else, pointed and effective answer, con- taining facts which overthrow ''Honestus' completely; and the writer, in order to prevent its being said that he was contending for his own profession, assured his readers that he was not a lawyer, but a merchant. "Honestus'' perverted the disclaimer, and, with a sheer, treated it as evidence of anxiety to avoid the odlum of belonging to the profession. Again, when he had printed what he declared to be an actual bill of costs allowed by a court of the common wealth, in order to show the ruinous expense of legal process, one who avowed himself lawyer replied, with an explicit denial that any such bill was ever allowed in Massachusetts. The first specific accusation made by ''Hon- estus, capable of being tested as to it's truth, was thus met with flat contra diction, and the accuser was challenged to name the suit, the court or the county in which the bill was presented. Instead of responding frankly to this challenge, the agitatOr indulged in shout of tri- umph at having provoked the lawyers to defend themselves, notwithstanding the pretended contempt of my remarks. Later in the controversy ''Honestus" was ''done" into poetry. An ironical versified travesty of hIs accusations and statements was printed, covering whole page of the Chronicle.
 But if this assault upon the lawyers by ga young incendiary," as he was inn patiently designated by correspondent styling himself "Seneca, was met in some quarters with jeers, in other quar- ters it had a great effect. It was then a common custom for towns to adopt, in town meeting, addresses of instruc- tIon to their representatives in the Gen. eral Court. Not a few of the towns in- serted in their instructions to repre- sentatives paragraph requiring them to do all Iii their power to mitigate the evil of lawyers. For example, the town of Dedham solemnly voted, con- corning the lawyers, that i've think their practice pernicious and their mode unconstitution- al. The representative was to do all he could to promote a reform, and if that should prove to be impracticable, you are to endeavor that the Crder of tGWyers be totally abolished" Ded- ham, by the way, voted the same year, with reference to the representative instructed as above that his compensa- ton should be five shillings day; and if the sum granted by the General Court flor then, as now, the State paid the memberS-should exceed that sum he was to pay the overplus into the town treasury. A resolution to instruct the Boston representative to vote for the abolition of lawyers was brought for ward at town meeting in May, but was supported by only seven votes. Boston, indeed, was the chief restrain ing force which prevented Massachusetts rom lapslng into hopeless anarchy. Another proposition discussed during the year was to limit the number of lawyers in the State to twenty-five, and to designate them Unpopular election. EdCGrd StGnUood, in AHdnttc.
 A French Workman's Dinner.
 A Bordeaux journal describes the din-