ble, and is influenced by many factors that cannot be foreseen.

(4) Knowledge of the housing conditions and new construction in one's district.

A real estate development consists in buying land, which is then developed; streets and sewers laid; gas and electricity provided, and often a few houses built to start it off. The land may then be sold as building lots. This is, however, a highly speculative enterprise, requiring a large outlay of capital; and should be undertaken only by experienced real estate men and contractors.

We are all reading stories at present about the fortunes made in the real estate boom at the Florida winter resorts, Miami and Palm Beach. However, let us remember also that no such publicity is given to the money that is lost; and that those who buy at the top will lose their share.

Such operations are highly speculative, and the risk is great. Real estate should be gone into seriously and as a business-not as a gamble.

RECOMMENDED READING

ISMAN, FELIX, Real Estate (D. Appleton and Co., New York, 1924).

SPILKER, JOHN B., The Real Estate Business as a Pro

fession (D. Appleton and Co., New York, 1923).

Real Estate News (Chicago, Ill.).

Daily Newspapers (Real Estate advertisements).

ON

CHAPTER XV

THE LAWYER

NE hundred and fifty years ago the profession of the law was not highly regarded. A lawyer was considered a parasite of society, and a person who lived by his wits through the misfortunes of others. Such is not the case to-day. The law is an honorable profession, and the good lawyer is a strong influence for good in our modern civilized society.

Qualifications for admission to the bar in nearly all states require a college education; and it is distinctly an advantage nowadays to be also a graduate of a law school. Formerly, most lawyers received their training by reading law in the office of another lawyer.

There are several classes of lawyers-patent lawyers, whose entire work consists of searching the records of the Patent Office for basic and specific patents, of registering the claims of their clients, and of prosecuting infringements of patents; lawyers who specialize in handling trusts and

the estates of deceased persons, although this work is, as a general thing, done better by Trust Companies; corporation lawyers, who use their efforts to keep track of the shifting rights of their clients in this, that, and the other state; criminal lawyers, whose work is in turn divided into several classes, and whose chief function under our system of jury trial is to further befuddle the mediocre intellect of the jury; real estate lawyers, who look up titles and draw mortgages, etc.; the old-fashioned country lawyer, who does a little of everything; and finally the "shysters" or legal scavengers (unfortunately there are many) who spend their time chasing ambulances and persuading people who have been in, or near, railway or automobile accidents to sue for damages, defrauding the creditors of bankrupt persons, filing fraudulent claims, and in general raking over muck and practicing legal blackmail. Almost every

kind of man can find a place for himself in the law. The business man, the scholar, the dramatist, even the humorist, will all find a field for their talents.

In a recent case in the New Hampshire courts, a suit for damage was brought against the proprietor of a restaurant for nervous shock sustained by a woman patron who had discovered a dead mouse in her goulash. The court in this case. ruled that the mouse was a "casual trespasser"

and that the goulash purveyor could not be held for its actions.

As a general thing, the rewards in money for the law are like those of the other learned professions, i.e., less than in business. Furthermore, a lawyer, like a doctor, must reconcile himself to a period of apprenticeship and lack of earnings until he is close to thirty years of age. Fees of $50,000 and $100,000 for a case are by no means uncommon, and many lawyers are paid handsome salaries as "retainers" for their services, which in effect is an agreement not to fight the corporation which pays them.

The law is unquestionably an overcrowded profession. There are too many people admitted to the bar who have only had a night-school training. In 1910 there was one lawyer to every five hundred persons, including children, in the United States. In the other civilized countries of the world, England, France and Germany, for example, there was one lawyer to every five thousand. Of course, the comparison is not entirely exact, since we have forty-eight different states with different sets of laws; but even so, we hardly need ten times as much legal aid as the people in other countries of the civilized world. It is asserted that out of about thirty-five hundred young men who are admitted to the bar in the United States each year, twelve hundred never

start practicing at all, and the remaining twothirds divide among themselves the work which about a quarter of their number could very easily handle.

Legal training has proved itself of considerable help to one who goes into business. Lawyers connected with corporations, banking houses and industrial enterprises are not infrequently offered high executive positions in them. If a man studies law as a preliminary training for business, he will make no mistake to practice for a year or two, in order to get an insight into the practical application of law to business. The law is also a fine training for politics. Most of the members of Congress are lawyers.

The law is preeminently a competitive struggle between men. The lawyer is matched against another man under conditions which leave very little doubt as to which one of them has come out on top. Unless a boy is well up in the front rank in his studies, unless he is quick with his wits, or by steady, dogged plugging can outdistance the others who, although more brilliant, are unwilling to work so hard, he had better not try the law as a profession. The boys who beat him in getting marks will beat him much worse in getting clients and in the court room. If one cannot beat one's mates at school and college, good, bad or indifferent as they are, one can hardly compete with