752 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



derstand except by bard study and risk of brain-fever, and even lawyers, 

 judges, and conveyancers must judge of it by its conformity to pre- 

 scribed legal forms ratber than through any warrant of title conveyed 

 by it. But though every man not a lawyer abhors such a jumble of 

 words, it remains as part of the machinery by which real estate is 

 transferred, and any proposition in a State Legislature to abolish such 

 a form and substitute something clear, short, and explicit, would call 

 out the active opposition of not only every lawyer in the body — which 

 is usually two thirds of all the members — but also of, substantially, 

 every lawyer and court officer in the State, as well as every legal 

 printer and dealer in legal stationery, for the reason urged by Deme- 

 trius in Acts xix, 25, " By this craft we have our wealth." And tJds 

 evidently is the one controlling, all-powerful influence which stands in 

 the way of legal reforms, and will until the people combine and ovcr- 

 throAV it. 



It is not the law's delays, then, which by any means constitute its 

 one great offense. That is but an incident of a system which needs 

 reform from top to bottom. The lawyer has, seemingly, settled down 

 to the conviction that his " best hold " for a fortune is to oppose radi- 

 cal changes, at least until some substitute as profitable is within reach. 

 He may not be opposed to reforms in the abstract, but a reform that 

 is to cost perhaps thousands a year at first, though it may be of 

 immense benefit to clients, is not to his liking. That is his con- 

 servatism. Perhaps morally it is not unlike that of others whose 

 vocations have been abolished through great modern inventions — 

 the use of steam, electricity, etc. — but if so, the peculiar tactics of 

 the legal fraternity have defeated nearly all propositions for legal 

 reforms, and thus justified the statement of Judge Learned already 

 quoted. The lawyers forget that in other callings nothing has been 

 lost in the aggregate to anybody by reforms that facilitate business, 

 as new inventions create new industries requiring a higher grade of 

 intelligence ; and that business is always sure to develop in propor- 

 tion to the facilities for its rapid, safe, and cheap dispatch. Kone 

 stuile sooner than they at the occasional outbreaks, even yet, of igno- 

 rant laborers against new inventions, on the ground that such changes 

 drive them to starvation. They know, if laborers do not, that 

 machinery only changes the form and method of industry without 

 abolishing it, and hence it would be well to consider if this principle 

 would not apply also to a reformed system of law procedure which 

 would secure justice speedily instead of defeating it through delays 

 that extend through generations, with little benefit to anybody 

 but lawyers. It certainly prejudices the community against the 

 legal profession, and impels many tempted into litigation to keep 

 aloof, and often to bear their wrongs at great loss rather than risk 

 further losses by employing lawyers who have no interest in any 

 case except to extract fees or reputations from it. But if we had 



