LAWYERS AND THEIR TRAITS.
OUTSIDE of the profession, at least, the law, as was of old the Gospel, is every where spoken against, and still more the lawyers. The denunciations, sarcasms, jokes, and lampoons that have bombarded the profession from the time of Christ's "Woe unto you, lawyers!" down to the very latest newspaper squib, would have demolished any institution not built upon very strong foundations. There is, however, a quite sufficient explanation, both of the persistent vitality of the lawyer's guild and of the incessant attacks upon it. It is attacked, and open to attack, because it is a human attempt at a remedy for human defects, and partakes therefore of the very weakness that it seeks to aid; and it lives and prospers because those weaknesses must have some aid.
It is curious to trace the unfailing series of flings and jeers at the votaries of Themis. The very prevalent present notion that there is a radical opposition between law and equity—that the real effort of a lawyer is to make money for himself at the expense both of client and of justice—is older than the Christian Era; and if it prevails about Christian lawyers, what fearful beings must the heathen ones have been! Not to quote any older matter, however, a mediæval dog-Latin rhyme embodied this doctrine very tersely. It said,—
"Bonus jurista
Malus Christa;"
that is, "A good lawyer, a bad Christian."
The story of Saint Evona of Brittany is to the same point. This saint, it seems, was a lawyer, and a just and devout one, too, or how could he have become a saint? Perhaps it was because he was not much of a lawyer! He went to Rome, the legend says, and besought his Holiness the Pope to appoint a patron saint for the lawyers, who had none. The Holy Father replied that he would be glad to accommodate, but unluckily none of the saints had been in the law business, nor any of the lawyers in the saint business, so that there was no proper person. The good Breton was much troubled at this; but after a long consultation it was agreed that he should select a patron saint by chance, by walking blindfold thrice around the church of St. John Lateran, and by then laying hold upon the first statue he could reach, whose original should be the desired patron. This was done, and having clutched a figure the good Saint Evona cried out in triumph, before he took off his bandage, "This is our saint; let him be our patron." The witnesses now laughed, on which Saint Evona, opening his eyes, discovered that he was holding fast the image of the devil, prostrate beneath the feet of Saint Michael the Archangel. The proceedings to select a patron saint appear to have been stayed here.
Foote, the comedian, appears to have believed in a continuance of this connection, however, if the following story attributed to him is true.
A friend in the country apologized to Foote for not keeping an appointment, by explaining that he had been at the funeral of a deceased attorney of his acquaintance. "What," says Foote, "do you bury attorneys down here?" "Why, certainly," said his friend; "what do you do with them in London?" "When an attorney is dead," replied Foote, with great solemnity, "we lay him out and leave the body all alone by itself in a room, with the door locked and the window wide open; and when we go in in the morning he is always gone." "But what becomes of him? Who carries him away?" "Don't know; but there is invariably a strong smell of brimstone left in the room!"
The opposition above alluded to between law and equity does not exist, at least in the legal sense of the terms. Any lawyer will explain that the principal difference is that "equity" is slower, more costly, and less
