IDEALS FOR LAWYERS.t
JUDGE PARRY, in a moment of very commendable enthusiasm —" uplift " they call it over the Atlantic—has ventured to talk of ideals to the lawyers, who are more ready to listen to the acid voice of the cynic. The great book by Ruskin, which was clearly in the learned judge's mind, is not often found in law libraries, nor are the seven lamps of any brand of idealism a common topic of conversation during dining terms at the Inns of Court. One nervously thinks of those ghastly tales of foreign missionaries that ended in cannibal feasts. But perhaps the natives, in this case, will not take • The Way out : Essays on the Meaning and Purpose of Adult Education by Members of the British Institute of Adult Education. With an Introduction by Viscount Grey of Failodon. Edited by the Hon. Oliver Stanley. Oxford University Press. [4s. 6d. net.] t The SevenLamps of Advocacy. By Judge Edward Abbott Parry, London Fisher UnwIn. Os. net.'
the book as seriously as it deserves. And they will have the excuse that it is, indeed, rather a long way apart from the real life of. the Law. It is so reminiscent of those pretty Christmas cards of the winter's scenes of our childish dreams ; where the snow is purely white and the sky so blue, the holly quite green and the robin redbreast quite red, while the reality is so often rain and mud. And so with Judge Parry's pretty picture of the virtues of the Law. One might imagine that it is a career for knights errant, seeking justice for the love of it. But, alas ! only a month or so ago two great law cases cost twenty-five thousand pounds apiece. The judge tells many delightful stories in his book. Perhaps he might have found room for one more—the tale of Papinian, one of the greatest lawyers of imperial Rome. He was once briefed by his Emperor to make out a plausible reason why that monarch had murdered his own brother, and to the Emperor the great advocate replied : " It is easier to do murder than to find an excuse for it" And for returning that brief Papinian knew that the penalty was death—and he died.
Still, perhaps Judge Parry's idyll may do good ; it is certainly full of amusing tales and the higher morality. It is a pity that the real law has a grimmer and more financial side. And the Lamp of Eloquence sometimes perhaps must. dim the light of the Lamp of Honesty.
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