Sir Walter Scott as a Lawyer. trade union as a business corporation must be abnormal; and finally, there is attached to trade union incorporation for business pur poses a grave danger to society. In short, in this instance incorporation, though attended with a few conveniences, is unnecessary, inappropriate, and dangerous. Do not forget the danger. If incorpora
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tion of trade unions should lead to combina tions of workmen and capitalists, the results would be far-reaching. One result might be a species of industrial peace; but peace at that price would cost too much. Opposition of workmen and capitalists—lawful opposi tion—is one of the most valuable assets of the public.
SIR WALTER SCOTT AS A LAWYER. BY NEIL MCCRIMMON. SCOTT passed his final examination for Scott got a copy of his notes on Hume's the bar in 1792 and was called to the lectures bound, which he presented to his bar on the nth of July of the same year, and father, who was very proud of it, and looked in a short autobiography (which Mr. Lock- forward to the time when his son would be hart includes in his biography) he has left one of the leaders of the Scottish bar. It was an account or the way in which he and his customary in Edinburgh at that time for each friend, Mr. William Clark, read for their final candidate who succeeded in passing the finals examinations. It is best told in Scott's own for the bar to give a dinner to his friends. words: "The rule of my friend Clark and Scott gave his dinner, at which his fathei was myself was, that we should qualify ourselves present, and it is recorded that "the old clerk for undergoing an examination upon certain of the Signet was very joyous on that occa points of law every morning in the week, sion." A thesis was necessary as well as a Sundays excepted. This was at first to have dinner, and Scott's thesis was on the title of taken place alternately at each other's houses, the Pandects, "Concerning the disposal of the dead bodies of criminals." After the cere but we soon discovered that my friend's reso lution was inadequate to severing him from mony! of putting on the gown was completed, his couch at the early hour fixed for this ex- Scott created a great deal of aumsement ercitation. Accordingly, I agreed to go every amongst his companions by mimicking the air and tone of a Highland lass waiting at morning to his house, which, being at the extremity of Prince's street, New Town, was the Cross of Edinburgh to be hired for the a walk of two miles. With great punctuality, harvest work. however, I beat him up to his task every "We've stood here an hour by the Tron, morning before seven o'clock, and in the hinny, and deil ane has speered our price." course of two summers we went by way of With his first guinea he bought a night question and answer, through the whole of cap and with his first fee of any consequence Heineccius' Analysis of the Institutes and he bought his mother a silver taper-stand, Pandects, as well as through the smaller copy which could be seen on her chimney-piece of Erskine's Institutes of the Law of Scot twenty-five years afterward. land." The examinations were passed by One of the first duties required of Scott, as both of them, with credit, as they deserved, his father's apprentice, was to proceed to the after such diligent and persistent study. Highlands, to enforce a writ of execution
