Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 08.pdf/278

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The Lawyers Position in Society. in the law that he is assigned his place at the bar of justice, that he is chosen to represent his fellow citizens in the legislative assemblies of the nation, that he is called upon to ex pound and apply the law that is embedded in the national conscience. Such tasks de fine the ideals of the profession. They make up the idea of the lawyer which is ex pressed, more or less imperfectly, in every con scientious man following the legal profession. Because men fail to see the lawyer in his relation to the whole nation, because they have not the liberality of thought and breadth of view which enables men to judge

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things in their larger significance, but remain able only to estimate other men from their narrow standard of individual experiences and prejudices, because such men are incap able of intelligent judgment, they naturally fail to understand the true importance of the legal profession in the social structure; but so long as there remains a conscience in men, so long as justice remains in society, so long will there be those who shall inter pret the mandates of that conscience and administer that justice, so long shall the legal profession remain as an integral part of civilized society.

A LAW-STUDENT'S DREAM, JUST AFTER THE BAR EXAMINATIONS. By Paul Taylor. I STEERED my flotsam through the percolating waters without colliding with any mechanic's lien or other encum brance, and finally disembarked on a strip of alluvion at the foot of a hill. Securing the little vessel to a bottomry bond on the beach by means of a long chain of title, I prepared to climb the proclivity. The waves were rolling up like liquidated damages. Here and there gleamed the scales of a maritime lien swimming just below the surface, while the offing was dotted with contracts of sale. The coast stretched away on either side as far as the eye could reach, indented by little coves where companies of directors were watering stock, or sweet young femes-sole were wiping clouds from their mothers' titles. I proceeded up the hill along the ease ment which skirted it, between two rows of tall genealogical trees. I could just see a manor house at the top, in front of which a regiment of milites were assembled on the demesne lands aiming several municipal ordinances and canons of descent at the

great jetsams riding at anchor in the harbor. I was afterwards told that the soldiers were firing objections, exceptions and demurrers, the most dreadful types of projectiles known to modern science. Certain it is that the engines of war were going off with deafening appeals! Nothing daunted by this war-like scene, I continued to approach. On the genealogical trees the little birds wagged their fees-tail merrily. • I never saw so many fees-tail before, and they were increasing all the time, as the skillful Statute de Donis stood near at hand, converting conditional fees into fees-tail as fast as he could. Not far away was a more melancholy sight — the gaunt Statute of Uses executing innocent uses with a sharp deodand. There were many strange things to be seen on the demesne lands. Signs, stuck all over the grass-plots, exhibited the most threatening mottoes. Here, one read, " Sic utere tuo," there, " Res inter alios acta." A board, nailed to a tree, contained the dreadful legend : " De minimis non curat