A Philadelphia Lawyer in the London Courts

ARTICIPANTS IN A TRIAL-WIGS AND GOWNS-COLLOQUIAL MET

isputes of millions of British subjects are settled by law. Here the whole kingdom begins and ends its legal battles-excep

efreshment bars occupy corners, where drink as well as food is dispensed by vivacious bar-maids.[A] Here and there, a uniformed officer guards a curtained door through which may be had a glimpse of a court room; but no sound escapes, because of a second door of glass, also draped with c

on of law, from the Lord Chancellor to the "bobby," is the thing best done in England and com

arrangement of seats sloping steeply upward on all sides, instead of resting upon a level floor, brings the heads of speakers and auditors near together; and the bright colors of the judges' robes-scarlet with

ay. At the judge's right are the jury, seated in a box of either two rows of six or three rows of four, the back row being nearly on a level with the judge. In front of the judge, but so

s, each row with a narrow desk which forms the back of the seat in front. The desks are supplied with ink wells, and with the inevitable quill pen. The barristers keep their places until their cases are reached and th

al and can only whisper an occasional suggestion to the barristers he has retained, by craning his neck backward to the leader behind him. This leader is a newcomer into the case. He is a K. C. (King's Counsel) who has been "retained" by the solic

when questions suddenly arise. The two men on each side of the case who know most about it have no voice in court, for the devil is necessarily as mum as the solicitor, and the name of the former does

three horizontal, stiff curls, and, back of the ears, four more, while behind there are five, finished by the queue which is divided into tails, reaching below the collar of the gown. There are bright, shiny, well-curled wigs; wigs old, musty, tangled and out of curl; som

osphere of complete understanding between court, counsel, witnesses and jury, and more than all, by the marked courtesy, combined with an absence of all restraint, and a perfectly colloquial and good-humored interchange of thought.

terary and ecclesiastical surroundings. Besides superior modulation, the chief merit is in the admirable distribution of emp

f law-thought-the manner of approaching the consideration of questions-is precisely identical, so that, upon the whole, the diversity is no greater than that which may exist between any two of the forty-six states. Indeed, so complete is the similarity that an American lawyer fee

erica and control such an enormous population with its many foreign strains, and that, as the decades roll on, it should thrive, improve, and successfully gr

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rs have been moved to rest