Evening journal., 1897-12-29
WAYFARER'S S NOTE BOOK
Things, Pleasant and Unpleas-
ant, Caught on the Way.
sKITs ON PERSONS AND THINGS

IF YOU READ THEM BEFORE SUP
PER THEY WILL AID YOUR d.
GESTION, BUT THERE is MOTH
ING PUT IN THEM TO LULL YOU
TO SLEEP.
CANDIDATES FOR LEGAL HONORS.
Before a young man can be register
ed as a student-at-law in this county
there are several prerequisites with
which he must comply. First, he must
skirmish around and find some lawyer
who has been practicing for period of
ten years or more and who is willing
to become his preceptor. Between
them they arrange the matter of what,
if any, compensation shall be given for
the use of such lawyers name. The fee
is $500, but it is seldom that it is char
ged, for if 1t were there are many who
are now lawyers who would be
something else. Next comes the pre-
liminary examination. If young man
who wishes to study law has a diploma
from any recognized educational in
stitutiOn it is taken as evidence that
his education is such as to justify the
guardians of the New Castle county bar
subjecting him to the terrors Of the pre-
liminary examination But the poor lad
who has been unable to get off to
school and get his diploma is the one
who suffers all the torments of the
damned for five or six months while
studying to go before the examining
committee to qualify as to his mental
fitness to take up the reading Of Black
stone, Greenleaf, Kent and the other
favorite authors of the legal fraternity.
In knocking about the law offices of
this city during the past four or five
years the Wayfarer has seen very many
cases of where the poor young man was
cramming for his preliminary examina-
tion.
The examining committee is compos-
ed of five leading members of the bar,
who also examine students for admis-
sion to practice. These five men are
regarded as legal terrors by the lads
who desire to go before them, and yet
dread the result of the work of their
inquisitorial tongues, we'll drilled in the
art of propOunding confounding ques-
tiOns.
There comes a time in the life Of
every boy when he must answer the
question, What are you going to make
of yourself-something or nothing?"
The law has its fascinatiOns for many
boys and the ambition to become a
lawyer is so laudable that parents are
generally delighted when their boy de-
cides that he will follow in the foot
steps of Mr.. SOlOn, Mr.. Dracus and the
other distinguished individuals of an
cient and modern times. They size him
up and conclude that in time he will
become chief justice of the Supreme
Court of the United States. Then they
begin working the wires necessary to
obtain the consent of some reputable
lawyer to take their darling as a stu
dent. 1t is not hard to do, for lawyers
are a gOod-hearted set and like to help
along struggling lad, provided he
does not struggle too hard.
This accomplished, the ambitious
young man is put to his studies. He
takes up English gammar, Latin,
rhetoric, English history, the worlds
history, algebra, medieval and modern
history, Virgil's Bucolics and Apples
Crampcolics, the Six Books of Aenead
and the Five Books of Moses, short
history of Rome, written and mental
arithmetic, the Acts of the Apostles
Ten Nights in a Barroom, Trilby, Key
to Blackstone's Commentaries, Five
Weeks in a Balloon, Chausers Canter-
bury Tales, Goldsmith's Deserted vii
lage, Tour of the World in Eighty
Days, Cresey's Fifteen Decisive Bat.
ties, Rudder Grange, Green's History oi
the English People, Mrs Rorer's bool
on cooking and art needlewok. the
eleventh census reports, Hoyle's
Games. Transvaal Parliamentary de-
bates, President Kruger's state. papers
President McKinley's message to Con.
gress, annual report of the president
and other officers of the P, w. & B
Railroad Company, journal of proceed
ings of the Grand Lodge Of Free Ma
sons, history of the rise and downfall
of the trading stamp system, anS
enough other books to fill the Institute
Free Library shelves. Having five ol
six months before him he thinks he viii
learn it all and show the committe'
what a retentive memory he has
In two or three weeks he begins t
think over the situation. He become.
convinced that there are certain in
fluential men in the county who desiru
to prevent him from becoming
lawyer. Then he gets to sizing up tn,
men who are to examine him. II,
COuto u lHt tOuCluSlOu lldL Iley are
gang of high-binders who only want {,
get him before them to make sport o
him and then tell him that he has no
the rudiments of an ordinary Englisl
education and that he had better ap
prentice himself to a blacksmith. H
thinks that one of them is afraid tha
If ne is admitted he will cut very large
ly into his practice and that anothe
has political score TO settle with hi
father,-and that is the way the thin
goes. He studies with might and mai
to read everything that has been writ
ten and printed for the past few centuI
les in order that no member of tn
committee can stump him. He read
all day and well into the night hi
face becomes haggard; he conclude
that all the world is in league agains
him. and more than once decides ths
it would be a heroic piece of work {
appear before the five tyrants, recit
Hamlets soliloquy and die by his ow
hand right there in their presence. Bu
there is usually a sweet-faced girl /
town somewhere who is patiently wait
ing for him to be admitted and to bull
up a practice which will Justify him /