lawyers set abstractions of law above the purposes of law. Speaking of the Limited Partnership I,aw, he said that no association could be formed under it that he couldn't knock into a cocked hat. Now just stop and think what such a declaration means! It is unquestionable that the Act referred to is the very plainest and simplest in its re quirements of any on any statute books. Any intelligent man who studies it with the intent to honestly comply with its requirements, can know exactly what to do under it, to secure the exemption from personal liability it provides for. Therefore, if the simplest and most self-evident in purpose of all the statutes on the books can be knocked to pieces by an expert lawyer, what in thunder is the use of law? Why not let the lawyers do it all, and save the expense of legislatures? Rats! I know that many old lawyers will agree with the one I refer to, but all the same, it's all rot and rubbish, for if law is an inscrutable ogre, why, the sooner we stamp it out the better for us. Your Disgusted Layman.
LEGAL ANTIQUITIES.
When the practice of advocacy, hired or vol untary, was first introduced into England, it is im possible to determine. That advocates were known in the Curia Regis under certain terms and conditions there seems to be no doubt; but in regard to any definite period when they may be said to have been established, the first official recognition of the counsel or advocate author ized to represent his client in court is to be found in the third year of King Edward I, when it was declared that " if any sergeant-counter do any deceit or beguile the court, he shall be imprisoned for a year and a day, and from henceforth not be heard to plead in the court for any man."
FACETIÆ. The prosecuting attorney of a North Missouri county and a young attorney noted for his per sistence were recently trying the preliminary hearing of a criminal case before a justice of the peace. The young attorney asked many irrele vant and incompetent questions, and when the prosecuting attorney would object would always say : — "Your honor, before you pass on that objection I want to argue it." Finally the young man asked the same ques tion the seventh time against the prosecuting at torney's objection, when the prosecutor, losing his patience, said in a loud aside : —
" , are you never going to get over being a confounded fool?" Whereupon the young fellow jumped up with his usual remark : — "Your honor, before you pass on that I want to argue it." Judge Gary has a dry wit with him that is oc casionally the cause of his grim court-room being pervaded by a very audible tittering. The other day one of the attorneys was airing his indignation. He had been robbed. Yes, sir, robbed. It was shameful the way things went right there under the eyes of the law. Finally Judge Gary noticed the fuming and fretting one. "What's the matter now?" he asked. "Matter? It's a confounded outrage. Had my overcoat stolen right from this room." The Judge smiled a little. "Overcoat, eh?" he said. " Pah, that's noth ing. Whole suits are lost here every day. Some years ago a lawyer at Chillicothe, Mo., a son of the Emerald Isle with the wit characteristic of his country, received a collection from Iowa against a man who had been dead for some time. He returned the collection with the following advice : — " , is dead and in h—1, and as Iowa is nearer that place than Missouri you had better bring suit in Iowa." The following description in a deed on record at Centerville, Mich., is worthy of preservation if not of imitation : — "Commencing at the center of the north bridge on east road at the foot of sand hill so called, thence easterly up the centre of the creek as far as dry land goes, thence northerly along an old ditch, the exact line being hereafter to be deter mined by a row of stones and stakes to be set and stuck to the Michigan Air Line Rail Road, thence westerly to where an old road used to run, thence southerly to place of beginning." NOTES.
"I leave behind me," wrote Lord Campbell, "thirteen huge volumes (XV to XVIII of Adolphus and Ellis, and I to IX of Ellis and Black
