in the case of most of the others, together with various modifications of broad yellow cuffs—first strike the eye.

The judge's bewigged head, as he sits behind his desk, is about twelve feet above the floor. On his left, at the same level, stands the witness, who has reached the box by a small stairway. At the judge's right are the jury, seated in a box of either two rows of six or three rows of four, the back row being nearly on a level with the judge. In front of the judge, but so much lower as to oblige him to stand on his chair when whispering to his lordship, sits his "associate," a barrister in wig and gown, whom we should designate as the clerk of the court.

Facing the associate is the "solicitors' well," at the floor level, where, on the front row of benches, sit the solicitors in ordinary street dress. Then come the barristers—all in wig and gown—seated on wooden benches, each row with a narrow desk which forms the back of the seat in front. The desks are supplied with ink wells, and with the inevitable quill pen. The barristers keep their places until their cases are reached and then try them from the same seats, so that there is always a considerable professional audience. For the public there is little accommodation—usually only a few benches back of the barristers and a meagre gallery above.

The solicitor, whose client may be the plaintiff or the defendant, has prepared the case and knows its ins and outs as well as the personal peculiarities of the parties and witnesses who will be called, but he is unable to take any part in the trial and can only whisper an occasional suggestion to the barristers he has retained, by craning his neck backward to the leader behind him. This leader is a newcomer into the case. He is a K. C. (King's Counsel) who has been "retained" by the solicitor upon payment of a guinea followed by a large "agreed fee," and he leaves the "opening of the pleadings" to the junior immediately back of him, while the latter, in turn, has handed over the preparation to his "devil" who is seated behind him.

Thus, the four men engaged on a side, instead of being grouped around a counsel table, as in America, are seated one in front of the other at different levels, rendering a general consultation difficult when questions suddenly arise. The two men on each side of the case who know most about it have no voice in court, for the devil is necessarily as mum as the solicitor, and the name of the former does not even appear in the subsequent report of the trial. How this comes about requires some acquaintance with the different fields of activity of barristers and solicitors, which will be referred to later.

In thus glancing at an English court, an American's attention is sure to be arrested by the wig. The barrister's wig, for his ordinary practice in the High Court, has a mass of white hair standing straight up from the forehead, as a German brushes his; above the ears are three horizontal, stiff curls, and, back of the ears, four more, while behind there are five, finished by the queue which is divided into tails, reaching below the collar of the gown. There are bright, shiny, well-curled wigs; wigs old, musty, tangled and out of curl; some are worn jauntily, producing a smart and sporty effect, others look like extinguishers. So grotesque is the effect that it is difficult to realize that these men are not mummers in some pageant of modern London, but that they are serious participants in grave proceedings.

Not only the eye, but the ear will convey novel and favorable impressions to the observer. He will be struck by the cheerful alacrity and promptness of the witnesses, by the quickness and fulness of their responses, by a certain atmosphere of complete understanding between court, counsel, witnesses and jury, and more than all, by the marked courtesy, combined with an absence of all restraint, and a perfectly colloquial and good-humored interchange of thought. It is hard to define this, but it certainly differs from the air of an American tribunal where the participants seem almost sulky by comparison. The Englishman in his court is evidently in his native element and appears at his best.

The voices, too, are most agreeable, although many barristers acquire the high-pitched, thin tone usually associated with literary and ecclesiastical surroundings. Besides superior modulation, the chief merit is in the admirable distribution of emphasis. In this respect both the dialogue and monologue in an English court room are far less monotonous than in an American.

Passing the superficial impression and coming to the underlying substance, there is extraordinarily little difference between law courts on both sides of the Atlantic. Not only is the common law the same, and the legislation of the two countries largely parallel, but the method of law-thought—the manner of approaching the consideration of questions—is precisely identical, so that, upon the whole, the diversity is no greater than that which may exist between any two of the forty-six states. Indeed, so complete is the similarity that an American lawyer feels that he might step into the barristers' benches and conduct a current case without causing the slightest hitch in the proceedings, provided he could manage the wig and that the difference of accent—not very marked in men of the profession—should not attract too much attention.

That the law emanating from the little Island, which could be tucked away in a corner of some of our States, should have spread over the vast territory of America and control such an enormous population with its many foreign strains, and that, as the decades roll on, it should thrive, improve, and successfully grapple with problems never dreamed of in its origin, indicates its surprising vitality and stimulates interest in the methods now in vogue in its native land.

[8]

CHAPTER II

THE MAKING OF LAWYERS

CLASSES FROM WHICH BARRISTERS AND SOLICITORS ARE DRAWN—THE INNS OF COURT—INNS OF CHANCERY—STUDENTS AT PERIOD OF REVOLUTION—A BARRISTER'S CHAMBERS—TRAINING OF BARRISTERS IN AN INN—BEING CALLED TO THE BAR—TRAINING OF SOLICITORS.

To young Englishmen possessing neither fortune nor influence, the profession of the law has long been an open road to advancement in a country notable for orderly and constitutional methods, where the ultimate appeal is always to reason. Perhaps the worship of money, which characterizes modern England, has somewhat lessened the prestige of success at the Bar there, as it has done in America, where a millionaire, upon urging his son to enter the profession, was met by the young hopeful's reply: "Pooh, father, we can hire lawyers." Nevertheless, the law still draws its recruits from the flower of the youth of both countries and, in England, it appeals to two types of men: to those who would become barristers, and to those whose ambition soars no higher than the solicitor's calling; moreover the classes from which the candidates are generally drawn, differ as do their training and the future functions.

Traditionally, indeed, the sons of gentlemen and the younger sons of peers were