The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1893-04-29

Springfield, at the annual banquet
of the Illinois State Bar Association
at the Leland Hotel, Springfield,
January IS. 1888. Mr.. Chairman,
Ladies and GentleMen:
AS there may be differences of
opinion concerning the Limitation OF
the subject assigned to me, l will
assume that it relates to all but
metropolitan lawyers, inasmuch as
it is the fashion of the day to speak
of the country as including every
place outside the boundary lines of
a metropolis.
While the country lawyer might
be classlcally termed "Lusticus," yet
If we take him as a class he will be
found anything but a rustic cuss,
when it comes to a dexterous use of
the nice, sharp outlets OF the law.
His clothes may not fit him like
those of his city brother, but that is
the fault of his tailor.
His hair and beard may not be
trimmed in Fashion Plate style. but
that is the fault Of his barber.
His office may not be swept and
busted daily; the worn books on his
shelves may not be bright and clean
as in the library OF his city brother,
and smart, clean volumes of reports
and digests may not be so numerous,
but what are there look like old
soldiers just returned from long
campaign-they have seen service.
While Hale, Coke, Blackstone,
Chitty:: Stephens, Story, if they
could return, would feel like unnat-
uralized foreigners in the offices of
his metropolitan brother, they could
drop into the country lawyers office
and feel at home, for they would
find their life work holding the
place of honor on his book shelves,
and their names household words.
The country lawyer loves old
friends, old books and before the
advent of the Phohibs, he loved the
other member of the famous trinity
old wine-generally OF the Ken
lucky brand.
The country lawyer is ruminant
animal.
He doesn't swallow his legal food
hastily, but he walks into the rich
pasture fields of the horn books,
knee deep, and filling himself, retires
to chew 1t over and over, until
healthy digestion enables him to
assimiiate it, and make it part of
himself.
He don't have to hurry. He
don't have to eat, sleep, think
according to time table made by
some street or steam railroad COM
pany.
He makes his own time table,
changes it to suit his own conven-
ience, and is therefore always on
time.
He makes the trip from sun to
sun once every twenty four hours
Just as well as his hurrying metro
politan brother, even if he does not
move forward quite as radidly to the
place where "Finis," is to be written
on his last page.
While the metropolitan lawyer
may be the clown in the circus, win
ming the applause of the half tickets,
by his quips, his tumbles, and his
swelling importance. the country
lawyer is the all around variety man
who holds the attention of the whole
ticket, by his bare back riding,
ground and lofty tumbling, tight
rope walking, and blowing the from
bone in the band.
The country lawyer is the nag
that can pull his share of corn to
market, or be stripped Of his har-
ness, mounted, and run and win a
race at the crossroads.
The country lawyer is something
like the poet ne is more born than
made, and Humor presided at his
birth, for a good joke gets inside
the lines of his country without CIV
ing him a call.
Skim the cream off the milk in
your dairy, and what have you left?
Skim the country cream off your
metropolitan bar, and what have
you left?
According to Darwin. it took a
long time for the process OF evolu-
ton to evolute the tails off our
ancestors, so that their descendants
might comfortably wear fashionable
trousers, but the process of evolution
works more rapidly on the country
lawyer, and often, when we find
metropolitan brother winning all the
races on the kite shaped track OF
metropolis, until he attracts the
worlds attention, when the worlc
hunts up his pedigree and training
and finds him. as a colt, putting or
legal muscle by nibbline the short
stubby grass of jury trials around th'
; primitive courts of country justices
Such early feed, in the legal pas
lures Of the country, gives wind ant
mettle to the legal racer, and make
him thoroughbred, as surely a
!. the limestone soil and blue grass G
y Kentucky, or the ozone of Californi
! gives it to the equine thoroughbred