ADDRESS OF WALTER STAGER

OF STERLING

"THE CAUSE OF THE QUIPS ABOUT LAWYERS"

From time immemorial the lawyer has been the butt of the wit and the cynic.

Shakespeare's references to lawyers, in his plays, are anything but.complimentary. Thus:

Jack Cade, a

In "Second Part of King Henry VI": rebel, addressing Dick and others, his followers, and telling them of the pleasant conditions he will bring about for them when he becomes king, is interrupted by one of them: DICK: "The first thing we do, let's kill all the law

yers."

CADE: "Nay, that I mean to do."

In "Timon of Athens": Timon advises two dissolute women to spread misery by plying their vocation:

TIMON: "Consumption sow

In hollow bones of man; *

*

*

* Crack the lawyer's voice,

That he may never more false title plead,
Nor sound his quillets shrilly."

In "Pericles, Prince of Tyre": Two fishermen drawing up a net call for help:

FISHERMAN: "Help, master, help; here's a fish hangs in the net, like a poor man's right in the law; 'twill hardly come out."

In "Hamlet, Prince of Denmark": In a churchyard, in digging a grave the grave digger throws up a skull:

HAMLET: "There's another: why may not that be the skull of a lawyer? Where be his quiddets now, his quillets, his cases, his tenures, and his tricks?"

Samuel Butler, about 1664, wrote, in "Hudibras":
"Is not th' high-court of justice sworn

To judge that law that serves their turn?
Make their own jealousies high-treason,
And fix them whomso'er they please on?
Cannot the learned counsel there
Make laws in any shape appear?
Mould 'em as witches do their clay,
When they make pictures to destroy?
And vex them into any form

That fits their purpose to do harm?

Can they not juggle, and with slight
Conveyance play with wrong and right;
And sell their blasts of wind as dear,
As Lapland witches bottled air?"

Pope wrote, in "Essay on Man":

""Tis education forms the common mind
Just as the twig is bent, the tree's inclined.
Boastful and rough, your first son a squire;
The next a tradesman, meek and such a liar;
Tom struts a soldier, open, bold and brave;
Will sneaks a scrivener, an exceeding Knave."

Samuel Coleridge wrote, in "The Devil's Thoughts":
"From his brimstone bed at break of day
A-walking the Devil is gone,

To visit his snug little farm, the Earth,

And see how his stock goes on.

*

He saw a Lawyer killing a viper

On a dunghill hard by his own stable;

And the Devil smiled, for it put him in mind

Of Cain and his brother Abel."

Shelley expressed the same thought, in "The Devil's Walk":

"Satan saw a lawyer a viper slay,

That crawled up the leg of his table,
It reminded him most marvelously

Of the story of Cain and Abel."

Thomas wrote, in "Epitaph on a Lawyer":
"Here lies a lawyer-one whose mind
(Like that of all the lawyer kind)
Resembled, though so grave and stately,
The pupil of a cat's eye greatly;

Which for the mousing deeds, transacted
In holes and corner, is well fitted,
But which in sunshine grows contracted,
As if 't would rather not admit it;
As if, in short, a man would quite
Throw time away who tried to let in a
Decent portion of God's light

On lawyer's mind or pussy's retina."

Robert Pollock, describing the occupation of the people on the last day, wrote, in the "The Course of Time": "With subtle look, amid his parchments sat The lawyer weaving his sophestries for Court To meet at mid-day."

Saxe wrote, in "The Briefless Barrister":

"The man was a lawyer, I hear,"

Quoth the foreman who sat on the corse.
"A lawyer? Alas!" said another,

"Undoubtedly died of remorse."

There are many stories, hoary with age, uncomplimentary to lawyers.

The following are examples of the more modern:

The burglar's wife was in the witness-box, and the prosecuting counsel was conducting a vigorous cross-examination: