FREDERICK THE GREAT AND THE LAWYERS. By O. F. Hershey. THERE have been many efforts to re form the law, but very few to reform the lawyers, possibly because the connection between the two is often so slight. Frederick II, of Germany, the most heroic figure in history, and, according to Carlyle, the last of the kings, had his own notion of how to reform the law, and began by reforming those who administered it. To your "disgusted layman " nothing should be more entertaining or hopeful than Frederick the Great's disposal of the case of In re Arnold and Wife, the Millers; and indeed for the profession itself this cause ct'lcbre can point a moral or two; or at the very least it can partially indicate the true spirit in which law-reform should be conceived and executed. In 1770 Arnold, a young miller, and his frau Rosine were joint tenants of a grist-mill on Crab-run, a little provincial stream near Custrin. They held their property subject to a small annual rent due one of the local nobility, and by hard work and true German economy they were barely able to make ends meet. It so happened, however, that one of the land barons up the creek decided to build himself an ornamental fish-pond, and to do so diverted part of the stream; with the result that the Arnold mill ran short of water and the miller was unable to pay his rent. Re-entry proceedings dragged on before the local judge for some years, Frau Arnold contesting every inch so bitterly that she had to be locked up once or twice for contempt of court, until finally she and her husband were ousted and the mill sold. Frau Rosine had good fighting blood in her, and she at once petitioned Unser Fritz to investigate her wrongs. Petition being of no avail, the Arnolds appealed the case to the Neumark Regierung, which confirmed
the decision of the lower court in every point. By this time four years had passed, and Rosine again petitioned the King for a military commission. This was referred to the Department of Justice, which investi gated and dismissed it. Thereupon she petitioned the Grand-Chancellor, temporarilly sitting in Custrin, but he also turned her down. Finally Arnold's brother suc ceeded in interesting his colonel, Prince Leopold, one of the King's nephews, who eventually enabled the Frau Rosine to get a new petition before the King, who there upon appointed a Col. Heucking, stationed in Pommerzig, to assist a local commission of judges and lawyers to make report on the facts of the case. The lawyers made one report, the colonel another. Frederick im mediately forward the colonel's " deutliches und ganz nmstdndliches" report, as he en dorsed it, to his Supreme Board of Justice at Berlin, with a cabinet order that justice be done these Arnolds. A new commission of lawyers straightway sat upon the case. They delayed reporting for some weeks until Frederick, after another petition from the redoubtable Rosine, issued another royal order demanding that the Arnold matter come to an end. Whereupon the learned commission at once handed down its decision : lower court correct on the law, justice clearly done; as to the facts a mistake is discovered, thirty odd dollars still due the Arnolds; otherwise everything all right, Col. Heucking to the contrary not withstanding. By this time Frederick's patience was about exhausted, but not quite. He or dered one more appeal — to the highest court in the kingdom this time — and de manded that the chancellor drop all other
