244 Life and Sport on the Pacific Slope 



mitted frankly that the judgment cited was incon- 

 testably adverse to his client's cause ; and then, with 

 his accustomed fluency and most impressive man- 

 ner, he proceeded to show that this judgment had 

 been reversed on appeal, and was therefore worth- 

 less. Opposing counsel was silenced. Bethel's 

 case was won. Some weeks after the junior 

 came to him in chambers. "Do you know," said 

 he, "I cannot find any record of that judgment 

 cited by X , nor of its reversal on appeal. In- 

 deed I am inclined to believe that such a judgment 

 was never given." 



"Ah," murmured Bethel, in a voice indescrib- 

 ably bland and insinuating, "that is also my 

 impression." 



This story is not irrelevant, because in the West 

 such smart practice is admired and imitated. The 

 gain is obvious ; the loss hard to compute. Those 

 interested in such matters may examine the vol- 

 umes of the California Eeports which record the 

 history of certain trials connected with land titles. 

 To the student of ethics I would commend in parti- 

 cular the case of the Kancho de la Laguna de 

 Merced, and the case of the Gabilan Eancho. In 

 these, as in a hundred other somewhat similar 

 cases, might drove right to the wall ; but the end is 

 not yet. 



The late Mr. Gr. W. Steevens, in his amusing 

 "Land of the Dollar," speaks of the Pacific Slope 

 as "rapid." I cannot endorse the adjective. Mr. 

 Steevens spent less than a week in San Francisco, 

 and his own movements were so very " rapid " that, 

 like a child in an express train, he may have 



