"Pain-killer." Such men should form an "Association for the Abolition of Danger Signals on Railways," based on a profound analysis of the intimate connection of red lamps and collisions. Slang is a painful evidence of growth. Some slang is unendurable; do not be afraid, it will pass away and be forgotten, like the pimples and blotches upon the face of a growing boy. But oftener it will harden, and take place and form; becoming, in time, the life and the sparkle of the pure well water of the future (if we must return to that temperate simile). Read over Henry IV., and you will find that plenty of the slang of Shakspere's time has died a natural death. But if none of the slang of Shakspere's time had ever been breathed over pottles of sack or bandied across the green-room, I trow our language would be the poorer now a-days! "J'aimerais mieux que mon fils apprinst aux tavernes á parler," says Montaigne, "qu'aux escholes de la parlerie." Rabelais has rather more slang in him than Racine; life and vigour are present in the two authors in a similar ratio. Dickens had wonderful opportunities in this line, which he did not neglect, and the literature which he enriched will recompense him by declaring much of his slang classical. If any of our guests want to hear a sound lecture upon slang, and are open to receive some timely hints as to the risk of denouncing a word as a new coinage, without first exhaustively studying old English literature, let them turn up Lowell's Introduction to his second series of the "Biglow Papers." There they will learn that the slang that we should really strive to avoid is that highly correct style of journalistic writing, which is the reverse of the slang I have been striving to defend, and which turns such a sentence “The man fell off the frightened horse", into "The individual was precipitated from the infuriated animal." Ten to one if you came across such a sentence in a paper, it would go on to say, with a plenitude of inverted commas, "again he hurried on his mad career," instead of "the horse trotted round the corner;" for free quotation and quotation marks are a sure symptom of this kind of slang. I will close with a delightful specimen I culled the other day, delightful alike in its "superior" language and the charming naïveté with which it couples greediness and the approval of Providence: "Bishop Stevens invoked the Divine Blessing, and

as

an hour and a half were consumed in discussing the edible attractions on the festive board!"

One who sat with us last month was pleased to comment rather severely upon the Hon. Mr. Vice-Chancellor Blake's lecture on Professional Ethics, using it as a peg upon which to hang a little discourse concerning law and lawyers generally. I do not propose to argue the matter with him, for the principles of our law and the reputation of our lawyers are too well established to suffer from the strictures of one who does not seem to be intimately acquainted with the subject whereof he speaks. I freely admit, however, that there is much truth in the remarks made, and that there is much to be done for the science of law, and more for its practice, before that degree of completeness and utility can be reached which we all so earnestly desire. A propos of the lecture I am compeiled, reluctantly enough, to make one or two observations of a nature other than I would like. On reading the report of it in the Globe of the 15th November (the accuracy of which I presume), I was struck with the presence in abundance of moral and and religious principles, and the entire absence of any acknowledgement to the Hon. George Sharswood LL.D., of Philadelphia, for the essential part which his "Essay on Professional Ethics" played in the entertainment. That the lecture from beginning to end was an almost wholesale appropriation from Judge Sharswood's book, anyone who will take the trouble to compare the two can easily establish, even if the learned ViceChancellor's allusion to certain amazing advice to counsel and clients (see Sharswood's "Legal Ethics," 4th Ed., p. 66) which he had "found in an American writer recently" did not set the coincidence beyond a peradventure. If this be a 66 course of conduct honest and fair" from a lawyer's point of view-to say nothing of an Equity JudgeI think the less said in public about "elevating the professional standard" the better. Apart from this I was astounded to find the notorious breach of faith of the Council of Girard College commended to the student as a worthy example of "seeking earnestly to faithfully carry out the wishes of the generous donor.' The council well knew the religious views of Girard, and that his plain intention was to exclude the Bible and all

fess I am quite unable to understand how any one can assert that in this study there is nothing "intrinsically beneficial," nothing mentally profitable or morally improving." My friend, however, though he takes this position, does not attempt to sustain it by argument or example. What he does, as he proceeds, is to point out that there are some branches of the law which are defective, and that law, as studied by some people, does not seem to improve the mind. There can be no difference of opinion on these points. Neither our Real Property Law nor our Common Law Procedure is perfect, though, by comparison with what they were, they might be considered well nigh perfect. But I must say that it is quite unwarrantable to assail these departments of the law, where there is so much that is admirable, and so much on which no one has been able to suggest improvements, with such sweeping charges as those of my law-condemning friend. Unless some one is ready with something like feasible and better rules to substitute for those in which we see defects, nothing can be gained by indulging in transports of indignation against the whole system, and everything connected with it. It is equally ridiculous to fall foul of the "oligarchy of lawyers" because defects still exist, and to charge them with keeping the law abstruse and irrational for the sake of profit. What does downright Professor Blackie" know about it? Has he ever tried his hand at improving the law, that it seems to him so simple a matter to substitute a new system, "which he who runs may read," for the long accumulation of centuries? If my friend who protests against "authority" so urgently, is going to rely on authority for his own purposes, he might choose authority which has something more than downrightness to recommend it. Any one who asserts that the profession generally is opposed to law-reform, if he speaks honestly, speaks ignorantly. With the exception of Bentham and one or two others, all the vast work of law-reform in England in the last century, has been done by practical lawyers; in our own country it has been done entirely by them. Both in England and in Canada the men who are the most respected by their professional brethren are those who take the lead in advancing the reform of the laws in those points where experience shows the need and the mode of amendment. Any

one who, like "downright Professor Blackie," accuses lawyers as a body, of a design to impede progress in adapting the law to our constantly changing circumstances, simply echoes the vulgar cry, that there is some mysterious association between the administration of justice and the Prince of Evil, and that a man, no matter how high-minded and enlightened he may previously be, as soon as he enters these unholy ranks, becomes an enemy of his kind, and sets about "strangling" their rights instead of advocating them. And this talk about codifying the law and thereby making it so plain and simple that every yokel may read, and read rightly, is really very idle talk. Does it render laws less liable to the necessity of interpretation, less open to different constructions, less difficult to apply to a particular state of circumstances because they are found in a code instead of in judgments. Have the imperfections of language

no place in a code? Are there fewer lawsuits where there is a code? I am not aware that these questions can be answered in the affirmative, but if downright Professor Blackie, or any one of those who accept his authority in these matters, has a plan for making the law so simple that the ingenuous layman may understand it without special training, and may be able to ascertain his rights without reference to the selfish "oligarchy of lawyers," I am sure every one would be glad to hear about it.

I hope my friend does not assume that the few text-books prescribed for students, which are simply intended to afford some guarantee that clients shall not suffer through the ignorance of practitioners, are the only ones of the "regular Canadian course." Our successful lawyers pursue a course which embraces a good deal more than these very necessary primers. As to my friend's opinion of the general effects of a legal education, I suppose, as I have said, that a man may study law in such a way that while his faculties are rendered more acute, they became narrower in range, but in such a case he must blame himself and not the law. But the fact is that lawyers, instead of being the most narrow-minded of men, have, as far as my experience goes, more of general culture than any other class, except perhaps journalists; though for that matter the journalists of London are said to be mostly barristers. It was Dr. Johnson who said that he found lawyers the most entertaining of men; why?

Because there is hardly any subject in which they are as a rule not ready to take a sympathetic interest, and hardly any about which, from the very nature of their reading and practice, they do not know at least a little. Have doctors, clergymen, merchants, bankers minds better stored with ideas, and more open to impressions than lawyers? Can any one seriously contend in the face of the facts, that the man who has specially applied his powers to acquiring legal knowledge, assuming him to have mental capacity, is likely to be on general questions utterly at sea, capable only of half views, and holding to them with bigoted tenacity?" A whole host of great names, of names great in law, but

แ

great also in statesmanship, philosophy, letters, oratory, philanthropy rise to refute so wild an assertion. And are the laws under which we live so bad that we should condemn lawyers as legislators? The most important part of the statute law will be found to have been placed upon the statute-book by lawyers, both in Canada and the United States. Is this consistent with the assertion that on general questions well-trained lawyers are at sea? Perhaps so, but if it is, why do not the people of these countries commit the initiative in legislation to their philosophers, artists, littérateurs, farmers, or merchants, instead of these bigoted, narrowminded, unprogressive, and designing lawyers.

TH

HE Local Legislature of Ontario has been summoned to meet on the 9th of January, and the Dominion Parliament on the 9th of the month following. As yet there has been no foreshadowing of measures to be introduced by either Government, although presumably each of them has already prepared what it deems a list of tempting, if not substantial, viands to be paraded in the carte "from the Throne." It is, no doubt, a difficult task to draw up the bill of fare for a Barmecide feast, and it can only be hoped that, in the sequel, our legislators and the country may be as well served as the beggar of Bagdad. It is much to be regretted that Mr. Mowat will persist in consulting his own convenience, rather than that of the public, as to the period of convening the House. This is certainly no party question. The chief organ of his own party, and the leading politicians most strongly attached to it in the counties, have constantly urged an early session; and still, either from reluctance to enter the conflict, or from unreadiness to face the Legislature, he continues the practice of late meetings at the most inconvenient possible period. Not to speak of the awkward division of public attention between Local and Dominion matters of interest, the beginning of January, or the middle of it, is the worst possible time that could be selected. It deranges municipal business, when councils

are in the agony of organization, by presenting to them the double duty of settling their arrangements for the year at home, and looking after their wants at Toronto simultaneously. Surely the Government cannot fail to recognize the plain and obvious result of this procrastination; why is it perversely repeated year after year? There seems no reason why the Ontario House should not meet and despatch all its business before the Christmas Holidays; it would suit the people much better and, at the same time, enable ministers to "eat their meal" without fear, and sleep not "in the affliction of those dreams that shake them nightly," at the near prospect of a session. They are not, as a rule, fat men, yet they love good fare and secure enjoyment of it at a festive season, as well as their fellows; why not so arrange it that the shadows of approaching foes should be impossible or ridiculous at the Christmas board, because all the hurly-burly is over and done, and the battle lost or won?

There is one subject upon which the people of Ontario will no longer be put off with evasive answers or delusive palliatives in the shape of half-and-half legislation. If the Government proposes to deal with tax exemptions, it must do the work thoroughly, or had better refuse to deal with it at all. Any attempt to deceive the people by a pretended

compliance with their clearly expressed wishes, by an Act which "keeps the word of promise to the ear and breaks it to the hope," will most assuredly seal the fate of Ministers when they come to give in their account to the electorate, as they must shortly do. The menace of extrusion from office by defeat at the polls is the only legitimate form of intimidation; and now, when the portentous apparition of a general election gains form and substance as it is approached, a regard for consequences, as well as a gentle warning about them, may not be without effect. It is needless to repeat the overwhelming arguments against the system it is sought to destroy. Exemption from the payment of a fair share towards the expenses of municipal government is merely the relic of a practice which vexed our forefathers and precipitated France into the jaws of revolution. No one has attempted a defence of it, save as classes and castes have always sought to maintain it by appeals to precedent or to sentiment. And now when the attempt is made, not only to perpetuate the existing system, but to extend it beyond the obvious purpose of the law, on false and frivolous pretences, and when rich corporations, religious and secular, defy the assessor by the meanest of subterfuges, the reasons for a clean sweep in these dusty and cobwebbed corners of our governmental system acquire overwhelming force and cogency. It is not enough that clergymen with their thousands a year should plead in formâ pauperis for immunity, or that congregations should occupy whole squares, free from taxation, in our crowded centres of population, or that capitalists should receive large dividends, and governments own large estates in realty without paying aught to the municipal treasury, all that is as unjust and inde fensible as any species of inequality and unfairness can be. But when it is positively claimed that all the hangers-on of churches who have the title of "reverend," publishing newspapers or keeping book-shops, shall be allowed to defraud Cæsar of what is Cæsar's, it is surely time that such an obsolete system were at once brought to an end.

In Canada, we boast ourselves to be freer, if not better, than our English sires. We have no State Church, and yet by a process of "levelling up," which would delight Lord Beaconsfield, every church, denomination, and sect is at this moment endowed by the State to

the precise amount of its exemption. What they do in England, is now known from the courteous replies of Sir Stafford Northcote to Mr. Potter's interrogatories. The IncomeTax, which is there an Imperial impost, is levied upon all, save the Queen; and she, with an honourable regard for justice, pays it of her own free will. Churches are exempt from local taxation, but not church property; so also is Government property, but then in that case, as in all other cases where exemptions are made, the amount is paid to the local authorities by the Imperial Parliament. So that in Old England, where there is an Established Church, an ecclesiastical caste, an aristocracy, and an expensive Government, the claims of even-handed justice are more firmly asserted and more equitably adjusted than they are in this free and enlightened Canada of ours. The question is one of those --and they are many-in which parties are not to be trusted; the people must soon have the solution of the problem in their own hands, and they will be themselves to blame, as they will be the sufferers, if they permit this remnant of privilege and immunity to be maintained. It will be for them to decide whether any set of individuals or corporations, either on the plea of sanctity, divine right, prescriptive right, or otherwise, shall continue to shift the burdens they ought in equity and in conscience to bear themselves, upon the shoulders of the community at large. It is impossible yet to determine what attitude the parties, as such, may choose to assume touching this vital question; but it cannot be amiss to urge the people to watch them narrowly. They are not above suspicion in the matter, and it must be remembered that "eternal vigilance" is not only the price, but the safeguard also by which alone equal rights and impartial legislation can be secured. and maintained. The entire system of taxation requires thorough revision and reconstruction; for that the electors must look to the wisest and best of their public men; but the exemption question is one they can judge for themselves, since it is one of justice and fair dealing between class and class, man and man, rich and poor-one which every man, not blinded by the film of prejudice or interest is competent to answer at the polls.

So far as the Dominion Parliament is concerned, the outlook is not encouraging. No doubt the old stories of jobbery and corrup