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ture shall not pass any act authorizing the grant of license for the sale of ardent spirits or other intoxicating." Constitution, art. 4, § 47. In order to arrive at the exact meaning of this provision, and to show what the convention and the people had in view and intended to accomplish in adopting it, no little industry has been expended in sifting the proceedings of the convention, and in bringing before us the expression of views by the different members of that body upon the subject of the liquor traffic. But one needs to give very little attention to the proceedings in order to be convinced-what, in fact, is a part of the public history of the time- that members of the convention who expressed views leading to the same result, in shaping the instrument to be submitted to the people, had objects in view which were totally different, and expected, or at least hoped, to accomplish wholly different ends by means of the provision finally agreed upon. The provision itself is experimental, and no one could safely predict the consequences; but while those who favored the total destruction of the traffic in ardent spirits hoped to accomplish that object by means of a prohibition of license, others not willing to destroy the trade regarded the inhibition of license as a removal of embarrassing restrictions and impediments. The provision agreed upon was not of itself a prohibition of the traffic, and upon this the most diverse views might be concentrated, but beyond this there was no harmony of purpose whatsoever. With license prohibited, a broad field was still left for legislation, and each side might hope to obtain the advantage in that, and not to find the constitutional provision interpose any serious obstacle. For these reasons the proceedings of the constitutional convention are, as nearly as possible, worthless for any purpose of giving aid in the construction of this provision, and we can only take it as it stands, and seek the meaning in the words employed to express it.

Does then a tax upon the traffic in liquors come within the condemnation of this provision of the constitution as being equivalent to a license of the traffic? Is it the same in legal effect, or is it the same according to the popular understanding of the term license? This is the question that presents itself for decision on this branch of the case.

The popular understanding of the word license undoubtedly is a permission to do something which without the license would not be allowable. This we are to suppose was the sense in which it was made use of in the constitution; but this is also the legal meaning. The object of a license, says Mr. Justice Manning, is to confer a right that does not exist without a license. Chilvers v. People, 11 Mich. 43, 49. Within this definition a mere tax upon the traffic cannot be a license of the traffic, unless the tax confers some right to carry on the traffic which otherwise would not have existed. We do not understand that such is the case here. The very act which imposed this tax repealed the previous law which forbade the traffic and declared it illegal. The trade then became lawful whether taxed or not; and this law in imposing the tax did not declare the trade illegal in case the tax was not paid. So far as we can perceive, a failure to pay the tax no more renders the trade illegal than would a like failure of a farmer to pay the tax on his farm render its cultivation illegal. The State has imposed the tax in each case, and made such provision as has been deemed needful to insure its payment; but it has not seen fit to make the failure to pay a forfeiture of the right to

pursue the calling. If the tax is paid the traffic is lawful; but if not paid the traffic is equally lawful. There is consequently nothing in the case that appears to be in the nature of a license. The State has provided for the taxation of a business which was found in existence; and the carrying on of which it no longer prohibits; and that is all.

But it is urged that by taxing the business the State recognizes its lawful character, sanctions its existence, and participates in its profits-all of which is within the real intent of the prohibition of license. The lawfulness of the business, if by that we understand it is no longer punishable, and is capable of constituting the basis of contracts, was undoubtedly recognized when the prohibitory law was repealed; but as the illegality of the traffic depended on that law, so its lawfulness now depends upon its repeal. The tax has nothing to do with it whatever. Now it is not claimed, so far as we are aware, that the repeal of the prohibitory law was incompetent; and if not, the mere recognition of the lawfulness of the traffic cannot make the tax law or any other law invalid. It is only the recognition of an existing and a conceded fact, and the courts cannot, if they would, refuse to recognize it.

The idea that the State lends its countenance to any particular traffic by taxing it seems to us to rest upon a very transparent fallacy. It certainly overlooks or disregards some ideas that must always underlie taxation. Taxes are not favors. They are burdens. They are necessary, it is true, to the existence of government; but they are not the less burdens, and are only submitted to because of the necessity. It is deemed advisable to make careful provision to preclude these burdens becoming needlessly oppressive; but it is conceded by all the authorities that under some circumstances they may be carried to an extent that will be ruinous to individuals. It would be a remarkable proposition, under such circumstances, that a thing is sanctioned and countenanced by the government when this burden which may prove disastrous is imposed upon it, while on the other hand, it is frowned upon and condemned when the burden is withheld. It is safe to predict that if such were the legal doctrine any citizen would prefer to be visited with the untaxed frowns of government rather than with testimonials of approval which are represented by the demands of the tax-gatherer.

It may be supposed that some idea of special protection is involved when a business is taxed, taxation and protection being reciprocal. If the tax upon any particular thing was the consideration for the protection given to the owner in respect to it, this might be so; but the maxim of reciprocity in taxation has no such meaning. No government ever undertakes to tax all it protects. If a government were to levy only poll taxes it would not be on the idea that it was to protect only the persons of its citizens, leaving their property open to rapine and plunder. In this State our taxes are derived mainly from real estate; but it has never been suggested that real estate was entitled to special consideration in consequence. In Great Britain real estate pays a relatively insignificant portion of the taxes, although in the social and political state it is more important than all other property. As a general fact the United States has not taxed real property, and though during the recent rebellion it taxed most kinds of business for war purposes, the number of subjects taxed has been several times reduced by legislation since, and may reasonably be expected to be farther

reduced hereafter. But the business taxed is no more protected than the business not taxed; and the fisheries which are favored by bounties are as much protected as either. All this is only an apportionment of taxation by the selection of subjects which under all the circumstances it is deemed wise and politic to subject to the burden. Whether a person, in respect to his property or his occupation, falls within the category of taxables or not, is immaterial as affecting his claim to protection from the government. It is enough for him that the government has selected for itself its own subjects for taxation and prescribed its own rules. It is his liability to taxation at the will of the government that entitles him to protection, and not the circumstance of his being actually taxed. And the taxation of a thing may be and often is, when police purposes are had in view, a means of expressing disapproval instead of approbation of what is taxed.

There has undoubtedly been felt and expressed a strong sentimental objection to the doing of any thing by the State that even seemed to be a lending of its countenance to a business which the objectors regarded as evil in itself, especially to the State participating in the profits of a pernicious trade. But the objection never found expression in laws forbidding the taxation of liquors, or of the business in dealing in them. Indeed, in this State, liquors have always been taxable as property; and so have been the implements by means of which forbidden games of chance have been carried on. Yet when the keeper of billiard tables is compelled to pay a tax it can be no defense to him either in law or in morals that he is compelled to do so from the profits of an illegal business. To refuse to receive the tax under such circumstances would tend to encourage the business instead of restraining it; and would not only be unwise because of exempting one man from his fair share of taxation, but also because it would tend to defeat the State policy which forbids games of chance or hazard. The idea that a thing is favored because it is taxed may be examined in the light of the practice of this State in some other particulars. It has always been the custom in apportioning taxes by valuation to make some discriminations based on reasons of public policy. As an illustration we may mention the case of property devoted to educational or charitable purposes and which as a general rule has been exempted from general taxation. The general belief has been that the interests and welfare of the whole community would be best subserved by abstaining from any imposition of the burdens of government upon such property, and the legislature in apportioning the taxes has accepted this general belief and acted upon it. It has been done as a matter of favor and by way of encouragement; and yet if the argument against the tax in this case is sound, we do not see why the State should not have evidenced its approbation of educational and charitable institutions by taking special care that they should feel its burdens, while at the same time it stigmatized other things which were regarded as immoral or pernicious, by refusing to permit them to appear on the tax roll. A tax roll might, undoubtedly, be made in this manner, a roll of reputable names or even a roll of honor, but how any sound public policy would be subserved by it must require cousiderable ingenuity to point out. It would assuredly not be such policy as States have usually acted upon. While in the selection of subjects for taxation, revenue is to be considered and kept in view, it is impossible to exclude other considerations.

In proposing a tax, it might always be a question whether it should be imposed upon persons or upon property by value; and if so, upon what property; or upon business; and, if so, what kinds of business; or whether it should not be a combination of all these. One method might be the easiest for the collection of the necessary revenue, but most injurious or unequal in its results; one might discourage industry and another encourage it; one might collect the tax from luxuries, and therefore fall mainly upon the rich, while another would collect it from necessaries, and be oppressive to the poor. The whole question would be quite as much one of policy as of necessity, and a legislator would be unfit for his office who did not look beyond the proposed tax to its probable results. This is especially true in every case where the tax has reference to police as well as revenue. A particular business may then be taxed while others are spared, not only because for any reason it can best bear the burden, but also because such surroundings attach themselves to the business taxed as to render the discouragement and discipline of heavy taxation wise and politic. In the few cases in which the right to do this has been denied on the ground of inequality, the courts have affirmed it as being beyond question. See Durach's Appeal, 62 Penn. St. 391, 494; Fletcher v. Oliver, 25 Ark. 589; State v. Parker, 32 N. J. 426, 431. The Federal government has gone, to a great extent, in the same direction, levying duties in some cases which, in their results, are prohibitory; and in the cases of the State banks purposely taxing them out of existence. Veasie v. Fenno, 8 Wall. 533. This case does not call for any expression of opinion upon legislation of that extreme character, for we have nothing in this law that goes beyond the ordinary legislation when it is enacted for the double purpose of revenue and regulation.

This State has never shown any disinclination to make things, morally and legally wrong, contribute to the public revenue when justice and good morals seemed to require it. If it were to act upon the idea of refusing to derive a revenue from such sources, it ought to decline to receive fines for criminal offenses with the same emphasis that it would refuse to collect a tax from an obnoxious business. If the tax is laid by way of discouragement or regulation, it has the same general object in view with the fine; not only as it affects the person taxed and the community, but also in the use to which the money is devoted. Yet the Constitution expressly provides for a library fund to be derived from the violations of the public law. Const., art. 13, § 12. A provision that may as legitimately be said to be a license of crime as a tax on a traffic may be said to be a license of the traffic.

Taxes upon business are usually collected in the form of license fees; and in this may possibly have led to the idea that seems to have prevailed in some quarters, that a tax implied a license. But there is no necessary connection whatever between them. A business may be licensed and yet not taxed, or it may be taxed and yet not licensed, and so far is the tax from being necessarily a license that provision is frequently made by law for the taxation of a business that is carried on under a license existing independent of the

tax.

Such is the case where cities, under proper legislative authority, tax occupations which are carried on under licenses from the State. Ould v. Richmond, 23 Gratt. 461; Napier v. Hodges, 31 Texas, 287; Cuthbert v. Conley,

32 Ga. 211; Wendover v. Lexington, 15 B. Monr. 258. The license confers the privilege, but it is not perceived why a privilege thus conferred should not be taxed as much as any other. The Federal laws give us illustrations of the taxation of illegal traffic. A case in point was that of the taxation of the liquor traffic in this State previous to the repeal of the prohibitory law; the Federal law found a business in existence and it taxed it without undertaking to give it any protection whatever. McGuire v. Com., 3 Wall. 387; Purvear | v. Com., 5 id. 475. What would have prevented the State from taxing the same traffic at the same time? Is it any more restricted in the selection of subjects of taxation than the general government is? If one may tax and the same time refuse to protect, may not the other do the same? The only reason suggested for a negative reply to these questions is, that it was the State itself, not the United States, that made the business illegal, and it would be inconsistent and absurd to declare it illegal and at the same time tax it. But how the inconsistency would appear in one case rather than the other is not apparent. The illegality was declared by competent authority, and yet the Federal government taxed the trade, at the same time refusing or being unable to protect it. If protection because of the tax was due to the very thing upon which the tax was imposed, there would be an inconsistency in taxing a prohibited trade; but treating taxation, however and wherever it may fall, as the return for the general benefits of government - for the protection to life, liberty, the social and family relations as well as to business and property - which is the only legal and proper idea of taxation, there is no inconsistency whatever in making a thing which is not protected, one of the measures or standards by which to determine how much the party owning or supporting it ought to pay to the government. If one puts the government to special inconvenience and cost by keeping up a prohibited traffic or maintaining a nuisance, the fact is a reason for discriminating in taxation against him, and if the tax is imposed on the thing which is prohibited or which constitutes the nuisance, the tax law, instead of being inconsistent with the law declaring the illegality, is in entire harmony with its general purpose and may sometimes be even more effectual. Certainly, whatever discriminations are made in taxation ought to be in the direction of making the heaviest burdens fall upon those things which are obnoxious to the public interests, whenever that is practicable. For these reasons we think the objections which have been made to the law have no validity.

The decree of the Superior Court dismissing the bill will be affirmed with costs.

The other justices concurred.

BOOK NOTICES.

Commentaries on the Law of England. By Herbert Broom, LL. D., of the Inner Temple, Barrister at Law; Reader in Common Law to the Inns of Court; Author of "A Selection of Legal Maxims," etc., and Edward A. Hadley, M. A., of Lincoln's Inn, Barrister at Law, late Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. In two volumes. Vol. I, with Notes by William Wait, Counselor at Law. Albany: John D. Parsons, Jr. 1875.

THOU
THOUGH the celebrated Commentaries of Mr. Jus-

tice Blackstone still remain without a rival as an institute of legal education, their contents have been so trenched upon by the "amending hand" of legislators and of judges, that the student of to-day, who shall rely upon them for an account of our present

system of jurisprudence, will be continually led astray. In the expressive words of Austin, they are, to a considerable extent, "the charnel-house of dead law," and ought to be read by the student only after he shall have acquired such a general knowledge of legal principles, that he can distinguish between the obsolete and the living. When a young man begins his legal studies, the impressions he gets are much stronger than those of later years, and it is of especial importance that they be correct. We are by no means in sympathy with that new school of legal philosophers (happily a small one) who reprobate the study of Blackstone; but it should be postponed until such a period as will enable the student to read it with judgment and discrimination.

Broom and Hadley's Commentaries—the first volume of which has just been republished in this country - is sometimes termed "Blackstone Re-written," because, with Blackstone's Commentaries as a model and basis, they have attempted to present the law of today as Blackstone would present it were he now living. It would be impossible, without entering minutely into details, to notice at any great length this most valuable work. We shall attempt nothing more, at this time, than to give its general plan and design, and the learned authors have done that with so much force and correctness in their Preface, that we transcribe their remarks rather than hazard our own:

"These Commentaries upon the laws of England pursue the order adopted, and contain much of the matter to be found in Sir W. Blackstone's celebrated volumes. They are meant to be such as he would himself, if now living, have reproduced, amending where amendments were needed, adding from the reports and statute book, and modifying his style in accordance with modern usage. This task, even to the great commentator, would have been difficult, and to those on whom it has fallen has necessarily been very formidable. Neither is the existing state of our law such as may facilitate the endeavor to exhibit it in a shape compendious and philosophical. In part dependent upon cases decided with reference to isolated facts, in part dependent upon statutes, too often enacted with reference to especial exigencies, each page of our legal volume unfolded by the hand of time adds to the perplexities of an author. And difficult as it may be to determine the state of our law at this or at that period, it is scarce possible accurately to exhibit it at the moment when a work, in the preparation of which years have been continuously occupied, emerges from the press. Admitting that the customary law of England is in the main certain; that though in some sort flexible, this flexibility is made conducive to the ends of justice; the statute law is undeniably shifting and unsettled, for that which is written to-day may be effaced to-morrow, or may be impliedly repealed, or altered and amended by phraseology so doubtful as to call for authoritative exposition. Thus is it that the judgment of an appellate court may falsify a proposition correct when it was penned; that a statute consisting of some few brief clauses may shatter a fabric reared with persistent labor by the commentator. But these considerations should neither discourage the author nor deter the reader. The mishap adverted to is inseparable from our system of jurisprudence. And to abstain from the study of our law because it cannot in all respects be precisely and accurately set forth would be as senseless as to abstain from the study of pharmacy because its appliances cannot always cure.

"These commentaries treat of the Rights of Persons, the Rights of Things, Private Wrongs, and Public Wrongs. Under the first of these heads are considered not merely the absolute rights of individuals, such as the right of liberty and that of property, but also the nature of those institutions which, by the framers of our law, were deemed essential for assuring and maintaining them - the attributes of parliament, of the sovereign, and of minor magistrates are here passed under review the states and conditions of the people are regarded — rights and liabilities incident to the ordinary relations of society are enumerated. Under the second of the above heads are included the classification and legal nature of real property, the tenures and titles of its occupants-the various species of estates the modes of acquiring and transferring them. Personalty is likewise here noticed, the property in and title to it. The third division of this work is devoted to the redress of private wrongs- the courts which administer it their jurisdiction and method of procedure; while the fourth division exclusively concerns itself with acts which are criminal in kind, with offenses against the crown, the commonwealth, the community- the manner of repressing and of punishing them. An epitome follows of the Rise and Progress of the Laws of England."

We shall attempt shortly to do something like justice to the merits of this sterling work, but we cannot let this opportunity pass to commend the work of the American editor. Mr. Wait has added many notes, some of them-for instance, those on Marriage, Divorce, Parent and Child, Master and Servant, Corporation and Mortgages-are of great value, and display, not only great industry, but also good judgment and a clear insight into the subject.

United States Digest; First Series. Vol. VII. Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1875.

This volume contains the titles between "Highways" and "Judge," both inclusive. The largest titles are Highways, Homicide, Husband and Wife (occupying over 200 pages), Injunctions, and Insurance. The value of such a work, bringing together, as it does, a synopsis of all the adjudications of the country up to a recent date, can hardly be appreciated by one who has not tested it. While we occasionally detect an error, particularly in citations of cases, yet the general accuracy and the power of condensation of the editor are matters for wonder. Instead of feeling regret for deficiencies, we feel only sincere gratitude for what has been accomplished.

THE

NOTES.

Bar of Memphis have a Library Association which, from the report we have of it, we should judge to be unusually prosperous and creditable. The library has already reached the number of thirty-five hundred volumes, and embraces complete sets of the reports of twenty-two States, and parts of sets of the reports of the other States, together with many English reports, and English and American text-books. The Association is out of debt, and makes all its purchases for cash. A noticeable feature of its management is its liberality toward non-members. All lawyers residing in other States, or in other counties of Tenuessee, are given the privilege, when in Memphis, of using the library to the entire extent allowed to resident members, and this without charge or ceremony.

The New York Evening Post gives the following biographical sketch of Judge Johnson: Judge Alexander S. Johnson, of Utica, who has just been offered the United States Circuit Court Judgeship of this circuit in place of Judge Lewis B. Woodruff, deceased, is a native of that city, and a son of the late Alexander Bryan Johnson, author and banker. He studied law with Mr. Charles P. Kirkland, formerly of Utica, but now a distinguished member of the bar of this city. Soon after his admission to practice he opened an office here, and formed a copartnership with the late Judge Hurlburt. After the election of that gentleman to the bench of the Supreme Court, Judge Johnson formed a copartnership with Mr. Southmayd, now of Evarts, Southmayd & Choate, which was continued until his election to the bench of the Court of Appeals in 1852. Judge Johnson held this position until the memorable campaign of 1860, when he was renominated by the Democratic party and defeated. On assuming the duties of his office in 1852, he removed to Albany, where he continued to reside until the close of his term and the death of his father, when he made his home in Utica. In January, 1873, Judge Johnson was appointed a commissioner of appeals by Governor Dix, to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Judge Ward Hunt, and in December of the saine year he was made a judge of the Court of Appeals in place of Judge Peckham, deceased. His term to the latter position expired December 31, 1874. He received the Republican nomination to fill the remainder of the term, but was defeated with his party last year. The appointment of Judge Johnson is received with great favor by the New York bar. He is about 57 years of age and in the prime of life.

An English contemporary states that Mr. Clarke, second judge of the Appeal Court at Ernacollum in Cochin China, recently enforced in a remarkable way the penalty for contempt of court. It happened that a witness who had been summoned in a civil suit failed to appear before the judge, who thereupon got into a boat and started at once for Challacoddy, some forty miles away. Arriving there, the witness was promptly seized by the judge and forced into the boat, and conveyed back to the court-house at Ernacollum, in spite of all his remonstrances, protests, and resistance. It turned out, however, that the witness whose contempt of court had so excited the judge's indignation had never been summoned at all. The process-server admitted that to be the case, and declared that the man he had summoned was not the individual whom the indiguant judge had traveled eighty miles in hot haste to secure and bring into court. There was nothing for Judge Clarke to do but to apologize, and compensate and release the bewildered native.

There was very little occasion in early times to complain of the "law's delay," especially on the part of accused persons. In the seventeenth century, as we find from the Life of Lord Shaftesbury, the assizes, lasting at each place only two days, the business was got through easily, as many as five, six, or seven, or even double that number, of the cases being capital, and in two days sixteen criminals would be convicted of capital offenses and condemned to die (Vol. 1, App. xli); whereas in our time, notwithstanding stenographers and other labor-saving machines, a murder trial is most likely to last a week, and an action growing out of a horse trade is seldom disposed of in less than a day.

All communications intended for publication in the LAW JOURNAL should be addressed to the editor, and the name of the writer should be given, though not necessarily for publication.

Communications on business matters should be addressed to the publishers.

A

The Albany Law Journal.

ALBANY, OCTOBER 30, 1875.

CURRENT TOPICS.

STAFF correspondent of the Tribune, writing from Syracuse on the 23d inst., makes some revelations concerning Mr. James Noxon, the Republican nominee, in the fifth judicial district, for Justice of the Supreme Court, which, if true, show his entire unworthiness of the office which he seeks. The story in brief is this: Some years ago a Mr. Davis, the executor or trustee of the estate of Samuel Oakley of New York city, having confidence in Mr. Noxon's integrity and business capacity, intrusted to him $20,000 belonging to the estate to invest. Mr. Noxon invested the money in bonds and mortgages; but subsequently, and, as is claimed, without the knowledge of his principal, again converted the mortgages into money, and used the money himself, forwarding the interest regularly, and leaving Davis to suppose that the money was still secured by the mortgages. In May or June, 1867, Mr. Charles W. Swift, of Poughkeepsie, went to Syracuse as counsel for Mr. Davis, to effect a settlement with Noxon. Noxon made out a statement, and proposed to settle by giving mortgages upon property which he claimed to own, the principal portion being thirty acres of land in the county. The statement, which was in his own handwriting, represented him as the owner of these thirty acres; that he had been such since 1864, and that the only incumbrance thereon was a mortgage for about $2,000. Thereupon mortgages upon said lands were executed by him to Mary and Sarah Oakley, the heirs. In 1871, Noxon became bankrupt, and, subsequently, Mrs. Cowles, wife of Noxon's present law partner, brought suit against Noxon and the Misses Oakley, the mortgagees, to establish her vendor's lien for the purchase-money for these thirty acres. Upon the trial it appeared, from the evidence of Noxon himself and of others, that he purchased the thirty acres upon May 13, 1867, only about five weeks before his statement to Swift; that he had never paid a dollar of the purchase-money, and that there was a mortgage upon the lands for $5,000 when he executed the Oakley mortgages. The result was that the Misses Oakley lost their money. The correspondent fortifies his assertions by copious extracts from the evidence of Noxon himself upon the trial, which neither tend to explain nor to palliate the offense Vo. 12.- No. 18.

charged. Unless Mr. Noxon can satisfactorily explain these transactions, he ought to be overwhelmingly defeated.

The Supreme Court of the United States announced, on Monday, its decision in the Farmers & Mechanics' Bank v. Deering, therein holding that the usury laws of the State of New York are not applicable to national banks, and thereby overruling the decision of the Court of Appeals in First National Bank of Whitehall v. Lamb, 50 N. Y. 95. This decision amounts to a practical repeal of the usury law of this State, so far as banks, either national or State, are concerned, since the Legislature, in 1870 (Laws 1870, ch. 163), passed an act expressly intended to place the banking associations, organized and doing business under the banking laws of this State, on an equality, so far as relates to interests and discounts, with the national banks organized under the act of Congress. Common fairness would now seem to dictate that our usury law ought to be either repealed or so far modified as to put all, whether corporations or individuals, upon a footing with the banks.

Not unnaturally, the English Bar feels some trepidation as to the effect of the new Judicature Act upon it, but we doubt if any of its members take quite so hopeless a view as did Mr. Pym Yeatman in a paper read at the meeting of the Social Science Association. His opinion was, in substance, as follows: The grand old bar of England would die out and a new race of lawyers succeed them, though whether it would be for the benefit of the public must be seen. The principle of the life of the bar is the principle of centralization; and that of its destruction is that of decentralization, which is the immediate and necessary result of the Judicature Act. When writs are issued from the numerous districts already selected, and causes are brought to trial in the most important of them, a large class of practitioners who possess what is called agency business will be swept away, or if they will still do business, they must settle in the chief of the country districts where centers are to be appointed. Barristers who depend upon these agents for their business must also localize there; if not, other men will conduct the chamber work, and hold the briefs at the trial. Following slowly in the wake of these men will come a different class, who are to be pitied, for their fate is a cruel one. This is the class of leaders, or those who now enjoy a good practice on circuit, who will have either to renounce practice Nor is this altogether or take an inferior position. the only or worst change that, in his opinion, will follow. Shorn of their honors, the local bar will be drawn by starvation to break down the rules of etiquette which now prevent them from seeing clients directly. And as a necessary consequence to this act of self-abasement and aggression on the part of

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