The Green Bag
436
Were it feasible to introduce the English custom requiring barristers to wear gowns, our courts of law would gain in dignity, but this is not practicable without a division of the profession into barristers and solicitors, nor would it help matters if every rogue were allowed to assume a hypocritical garb. The barrister's robe might well be awarded to a select few as a badge of distinction, and this would be fortunate,
but how would the prejudice be over come, and by whom could the innovation be carried out? Much more is to be hoped for, from a wider diffusion of the etiquette of the United States Supreme Court, before which solemn tribunal none may appear to plead his cause except in a seemly frock coat. In the trying heat of our summer climate a latitude in dress should be conceded to the bar, but the bench may properly be permitted to swelter in
robes, for theirs is an occupation re quiring calmer deliberation. Let no lawyer, however, appear in the halls
REVISED EDITIONS SUGGESTION offered by Mr. Carlo P. Sawyer, librarian of the Chicago Bar Association, in favor of the sub
stitution of a system of supplemental volumes for periodical new editions of
law treatises, meets with the approval of the National corporalion Reporter, which says: — If the author of a one or two-volume text book would get out a supplemental volume at the end of say, ten years, the text and citations being distributed, by numbered paragraphs, ac cording to the scheme of the original work, and at the end of another ten years would get out a second supplemental volume, embracing b0!!! the material in the first volume and subseqm’ilt decisions, there would be no reason for revising
the book more than once in a generation and the cost of the supplemental volume would b5 trifling compared to the cost of a second edition
The law publishers and text Write!’S no doubt have their own side of the question, and while the mercenary advantage of disposing of a new revised
edition may count for something with
of justice coatless or tennis racket in
them, the existing practice exists pri
hand, lest the Court grow envious and
marily as a matter of custom, no new
uncomfortable. And what about waist
method of keeping text-books up-to-date
coats? They are, it seems to us, a necessary instrumentality in the ad ministration of justice. But crash suits may in extreme circumstances be worn, though flannels are at all times
having yet been devised, and 8150’
most improper.
to earlier editions unnecessary. In revising a law book to keep it abreast of the times, it is frequently
If lawyers will give heed to these sug
gestions the future cannot fail to bring forth a more decorous, if slightly less
undoubtedly, as the result of a convic tion that the needs of the practitioner are best served by placing at his dispOSal a complete volume rendering reference
necessary tions and not makesimply minortoalterations, add new Cilia‘ but
comfortable bar. HE great majority of the 16,000
lawyers in New York City are said to make not over a thousand dol lars a year. If they made more there would be much more trouble in the world, so honors are even. ~~¢r7zenectady Union.
to rewrite large portions of the text! or even to recast much of the orig'inal material. In such cases a supplemental volume vantage would rather obviously than an beadvantage' a disad' The vide object, a labor-saver, of course, andshould a supplement?11 be to pro‘
volume which would require diligeflt
