Author Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1900 Excerpt:...be to stand guard while some fellow robbed a bank. With these semi-confessions too many of us must make, we can scarcely be surprised that the public should get some unfavorable impressions. Of all the professions of life that of the law is of the keenest daily concern. To know the law is to know man's necessities as a citizen. It is the science of man and man. The lawyer stands next to the law, its recognized disciple and exponent! He stands thus between man and man, between the state and the citizen, at the very focus of human relations where meet th"e million conflicting interests. From his very position and the nature of his knowledge he becomes the oracle and authority of men. The greedy and the benevolent, the bold and the timid, the vicious and the defenseless, the vile and the good, all seek him as confident and counsel. Some come for justice, some to defeat it; some to do their duty, some to avoid it; some to help the needy, some to grind the poor; some to cure injustice, some to sate revenge. Their charity, avarice, hopes, fears, anger and compassion, malice and remorse, domestic troubles and financial concerns--their outer methods and inner motives--all pass in his review, all invite his judgment and obey his counsel. He is at once the rock on which must beat the greed, the pride, the passions of men, and again the pivot on which must turn their steady welfare and abiding hope. Men in no other profession have such responsibility. Men in no other profession sustain such relations to the state and the people as we assume when we take the entrance oath. The lawyer must meet not only the ordinary temptations of life--the love of money, the honors of success--but he must meet also that other and highest temptation known to man--the use of power,...