AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN F. LACEY 419 



strength of the local har. The best school for a lawyer 

 is the trial of cases among strong lawyers. Philip Myers, 

 of the old firm of Rice, Myers & Rice, quit business soon 

 after I came to the bar, but I learned his office methods 

 by reading law with him when I was on parole in 1862. 

 Judge Wm. H. Seevers, Judge J. A. L. Crookham, Lieu- 

 tenant-Governor John R. Needham, Attorney-General 

 and Congressman M. E. Cutts, Judge and Congressman 

 Wm. Loughridge, Judge J. Kelley Johnson were among 

 the gentlemen whom I was called upon to meet of the older 

 bar, while J. B. Bolton, Judge Ben McCoy, and Liston 

 McMillen were among the younger members. At Knox- 

 ville I had to meet Governor Stone and Judge Ayers ; at 

 Newton, Judge D. Ryan and Judge H. S. Winslow; at 

 Sigourney, Colonel C. H. Mackey, Judge and Congress- 

 man E. S. Sampson, and Geo. D. Woodin. All these 

 men were good lawyers and some of them exceptionally 

 strong. In the United States courts and the Iowa Su- 

 preme Court I met the bar from all over the state. 



There is scarcely any kind of a case, civil or criminal, 

 that I have not tried. It has been my custom in every 

 case to go to the bottom of it. If it involved an injury 

 to an arm I studied the anatomy of the arm as carefully 

 as any surgeon would have done. If it involved a ques- 

 tion of insanity I obtained and read every work on the 

 subject. In short it has been a pleasure to me, for I loved 

 work, to study every question that might arise in the 

 progress of each case as it came up. I might at any time 

 have availed myself of my special knowledge of railway 

 law by taking employment with one of the great railway 

 corporations and growing up in its business. From a 

 financial point of view I should have done this, but there 

 was always a fascination in the general practice. I liked 

 a multitude of clients. I liked to have them take their 

 turns waiting for me to consider their cases. I shrunk 



