The daily Gate City and constitution-Democrat. (Keokuk, Iowa) 1916-1922, 1920-07-24
One Attorneys Speech in One Case
Estimated to Have Cast Client
Six Pounds a Minute for
Twenty-Five Hours.
WITNESSES COSTLY, TOO
Nineteen of Them Answered Thou
sand Questions in One Day ia
the WyIer Lewis Case
of 1908.

case at Manchester Leslie Scott made
la speech of nearly 100000 words. He
talked for more than twenty-fiv
hours in all, and, taking all the ex-
penses into account, it is reckoned
that his speech cost something like
96 a minute
The old saying is that the lawyer
gets the oyster, the litigants nothing
but the shells. The truth Of this
may be judged by the enormous sums
spent over some recent lawsuits, re-
marks a writer in London Answers.
OF these the Wyler-Lewis holds sew
eral records. 1t was known as the
city conspiracy case and came on
first in 1908. 1t lasted thirty-three
days and they spoke $1,000 words
Replies by plaintiffs numbered 1885,
600 words. There were nineteen 9TH
er witnesses, who, between them, ans
wered about thousand questions a
day.
The shorthand writer's reports cost
ESQ a day and the documents were
SO voluminous that a special room had
to be set aside for them.
Thirty Thousand pounds was spent
in preparation; for the trial, counsels'
fees and retainers exceeded G24,000.
Even the jurors got G34 lbs each.
The whole cost of the trial exceeded
G65, 00O
But that was only the beginning.
There was an appeal. There were, in.
deed, several appeals, and two years
later the case came before the house
of lords.
After the thirty-three days in the
Kings bench the case had gone to
the Court of Appeal, where it took
eighteen days, and where the first
jury's finding was reversed. It's final
stage before the lords took three
weeks. The total cost was well over
ESQ, 900.
Next in point of cost comes the
trial of Harry Thaw in New York for
the murder of Stanford White. Nine
weeks were spent in a weary battle
of experts, who strove to prove Thaw
sane or insane. Mr.. Delmas, the ia
nous California advocate, received a
fee of 100000, to be increased to
$4,000 If Thaw escaped the electric
chair. As we all know, he did es-
cape.
The toatl cost of prosecution and
defense combined exceeded $4,000.
Divorce courts are often ruinously
expensive Counsel in the Bryce di-
vorce suit, tried in 1907, received
$1,000. The evidence in this case
occupied seventy-six hours. The case
lasted fifteen days and cost $1,000 a
day.
Then there was the Castellane case,
when Jay Gould's daughter managed
to get rid of her foreign husband. The
bill presented to the lady is said to
have amounted to $4,000.
To go back little way, the extra
dition of Jabez Balfour from the Ar
gentine cost the pretty little sum of
G14,036, II shillings, II pence, while
oddly enough, the trial of DR.. JAIME
son, after the famous raid, came to
the same sum within a very few
pounds.
What seems on the face of it a
small and Insignificant dispute may
end in the expenditure of vast sums
of money. In 1916 five law lords oc-
cupied an hour and half in reading
considered judgments as to whether
a filler" in Yorkshire coal mine was
entitled to receive Ell Is. Cd or Ell
lbs. lid for certain work
That lis. Id. had been wrangled
over in every court from the county
court right up to the house of lords,
over a period of three years, the
point to be decided being whether the
man was employed by the coniery
company or the newer under whom
he worked.
The case cost over $4,000. --
Law making is another expensive
luxury when private bill demands
the services of expert witnesses. In
1908 the port of London bill took
the committee twenty-five days. The
costs ran to G7,200 day, or a gross
total of nearly E160,000.