DIGNITY AND INDEPENDENCE OF THE BAR. THOSE gentlemen of the
bar who go the Western Circuit opine, that it is "inconsistent with the dignity and independence of their body, that any member of it should furnish reports to a newspaper." If there be anything degrading in the practice thus denounced—which these gentlemen, taking upon themselves the character of legislators, have decreed shall be punished by ex- clusion from the "bar-mess "—it must either be in the employ- ment itself or in the employer. The reporting of law-cases, so far from being beneath the dignity of a young barrister, is perhaps the best preparation he can make for future employment. It must, then, be in the employer : but how these Solons make out that to receive payment for honest industry—for performance of a task which comparatively few are competent to—from a news-. paper publisher is degrading, while payment for the same ser- vices from a book or magazine publisher is not, it seems difficult to conceive. This mock dignity of the bar is as ludicrous as any other mock dignity. The aristocracy of professions, like every other aristocracy, must abate its exactions now-a-days. Every man of education, gentlemanly feelings, and upright con- duct, must be recognized as a gentleman by the privileged orders. It is personal character, much more than employment, that de- termines a man's place in society. The young barrister who ekes out a scanty income by reporting stands higher in the estimation of the general public, whatever he may do in that of the "bar- mess," than the young barrister who seeks promotion by servility to political or private patrons. It is the former who truly main- tains the " independence " of his profession. Clients and. every other branch of the legal profession have an interest in checking this petulance of the bar : and they have it in their power to check it. If in every case where an industrious and deserving barrister is expelled from the " bar-mess " for reporting to a newspaper, attornies would cherish (and clients instruct their attormes to cherish) his industry and independent spirit by employment, and mark their sense of-the petulance of those. who were most proud-
next in urging his 'expulsion, the " diguitaries " would soon. find themselves in .a mess mdeed,:and.be more anxious to getout of it themselves than to drive out others.
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