The Country Lawyer.
365
THE COUNTRY LAWYER IN ENGLISH PUBLIC AND SOCIAL LIFE. By Edward Porritt. THE place in which to study the lawyer in public and social life in England is one of the larger cathedral cities. A cathedral city is usually a county town, an assize town, a quarter sessions borough, and a market town; and is thus the center of the ecclesiastical, civil, and social life of the county. The country lawyer, the prac titioner who in England is called the solici tor, is to be seen at his best in one of these cities. Such places afford a large amount of work of an exceedingly varied kind for the junior branch of the legal profession; and the size and settled character of the population give the lawyer excellent oppor tunities for becoming a figure in social and public life. In these communities the profession of the law seems to carry with it more social consideration, and more social opportuni ties than fall to the lot of the ordinary solicitor or barrister in London. A lawyer in London is one of thousands of the same profession. He enjoys the place he has made in the law courts, and in and about the Inns of Court; but, if his home is in one of the suburbs, his social rank is not much higher than that of his neighbor who is a journalist, a stockbroker, a bank manager, or a merchant. When engaged in his pro fessional duties, he is only one in a crowd; at home his social position has little to dis tinguish it from that of his neighbors who are not of an old, learned and exclusive profession. In a provincial city the case is different. There are seldom as many as twenty lawyers in one of these cities. From the nature of their work, most of them are much in the public eye, and those of any professional standing have prominent and well-defined places in the public and social life of the community. The public life of a provincial city offers
many opportunities for a lawyer in the direct line of his profession. There are few paid commissionerships, and in the smaller cities no stipendiary magistracies, but the well-paid clerkships open to lawyers, often confined entirely to them, are numerous. Some of these clerkships are peculiar in character, and owe their existence to the fact that in England service on all the local governing bodies is honorary. The mem bers give their services, and the only highlypaid official is the clerk. This is so in connection with the county councils, estab lished under the Act of 1888; with the borough councils, which came into exist ence under the Municipal Reform Act of 1834; with the boards of guardians for the relief of the poor, which carry out the pro visions of the Poor Law of 1834, and it is also so in connection with the school boards, established under the Elementary Education Act of 1870. The members of these various adminis trative bodies are elected directly by the local tax-payers. Each of these councils or boards appoints its clerk, who holds office during good behavior; practically for life. The clerks of the county councils and of the borough councils are always of the solicitor branch of the legal profession. The Acts of Parliament insist that the holders of these positions shall be learned of the law. Laymen may serve as clerks to the school boards and boards of guardians; but although these positions are open to laymen, a large number of them are held by lawyers. As professional salaries go, in England, these clerkships are well paid. Clerks to county councils receive salaries ranging from £600 to £1,000 a year. The clerk of a municipal corporation in a city of 40,000 or 50,000 inhabitants will receive from £450
