tic, idea-creating race, gifted with that rarest of all gifts, imagination, which raises man to God-like action, or at least to Godlike dreams. [Applause.]

If the drawing together of all portions of the English-speaking race be a dream, wake me not, let me dream. It is a dream better than most realities. Give me as my constant hope through which I see in the future, the drawing together closer and closer of the English-speaking race under a Federal constitution, which has shown that the freest government of the parts produces the strongest government of the wholethat there may come a common citizenship embracing all lands, the only test being:

If Shakespeare's tongue be spoken there,
And songs of Burns are in the air.

[Applause, loud and long-continued.]

LEWIS E. CARR

THE LAWYER AND THE HOD CARRIER

Speech of Lewis E. Carr at the annual banquet of the New York State Bar Association, Albany, N. Y., January 17, 1900. Walter S. Logan, president of the Association, occupied the chair. The speech of Mr. Carr followed that of John Cunneen, and President Logan introduced Mr. Carr in the following words: "The committee of arrangements decided some time ago that it never would do to let John Cunneen speak for the Bar of Buffalo without having something to follow him which would bring the audience down to earth. [Applause.] They have selected that modest and retiring gentleman, that best and greatest of lawyers, Mr. Lewis E. Carr, of Albany."

MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN OF THE STATE BAR ASSOCIATION OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK:-These occasions, when the lions of the profession emerge from their urban and rural lairs for their annual meet and the time comes for them to gather about the festive board to enjoy the feast of reason and the flow of Bear spring water and the other innocuous beverages, are exceedingly enjoyable, yet they have their mournful aspect. A year ago it was my fortune to take part in the proceedings of that annual meeting for the education and amusement of those who were then assembled. I was then associated with distinguished individuals, star-actors, as it were, but, as I look around to-night and see who have been called upon to take part at this time, I find I am the only one who officiated then. Whether it be another instance of the survival of the fittest [laughter], or for whatever reason, you can well understand why it is that I am about to speak to you in a melancholy way upon this occasion. Of course, you will not take what I say literally. We had on that occasion, as we have had now, the Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals, who graced and adorned that feast, as he graces and adorns every place where he may

be, and every position he may occupy. We had the Governor then; we have had the Governor now; not the same person, but one that, ex officio, is just as big when the other isn't around. Now things are a little different than they were last year, because then they said I might roam all over the lot and take a nip wherever herbage promised the sweetest bite, but, when I was told that I was to say something here this time, an old stager at this sort of business-he must have been an old stager, because he called me a young man-took me one side and said: "Now, you ought to have a subject; not that you are expected to say much about that subject; the less, perhaps, the better; but," said he, "it is just like one of those big boat races, where there are a number of crews that are anxious to exploit themselves; they stake the course off with their little flags, and each crew has a lane which they are expected to keep." I said: "That is all right; I can well understand how the crew that is ahead in their abounding vigor may prance all over the course, but I never could see any temptation for the fellows that were behind to wobble over the line and take some other fellow's water." I think that fits my case [laughter], because it is ordinarily my luck to be either near or at the tail end of the procession [laughter], or in the front rank of the urchins that tag on behind. But this old stager said-I won't tell who it was "I will give you a subject that will be a poser," and, what do you suppose he brought in, written in a round, bold hand on the typewriter [laughter], "The Lawyer and the Hod Carrier," an essay supposed to be wise, and possibly, otherwise, with regard to the similarities and the dissimilarities of the profession of the one and the avocation of the other, bound in law sheep on the edges.

The idea didn't originate with him. It originated with a wise and eminent judge of one of our courts, I won't say who it was, because if you keep abreast of the current judicial opinions you will have already guessed who it was, and, if you haven't done that, let me admonish you to do it, or you will find some fellow who has got a full-fledged demon of pernicious activity in him will confront you to your undoing with the latest edition from the judicial seat of war. [Laughter.]

After all, there are many similarities, if you will remember,

or if you will look at it, between the hod carrier and the lawyer. Both are useful members of society. The hod carrier, with patient and laborious toil, carries up to the skilled craftsman above the material with which to build the lasting and perfect wall. If he loiters on the way, or if he carries up unfitted or unsuited material, then the results will not be such as redound to the credit of the craftsman that is on high. We, too, from the great heap of material, gather that which we think is fitted for the case, and, with patient toil, carry it up these slippery hills to the stony mansion above, and there the judicial craftsman is expected to put in true and perfect form the materials that we take up, and we sometimes criticize the result; possibly it may be our fault, because the material we take may not be exactly fitted and suited for the work. You will remember, I think some of you will, at all events, the Scriptural story about the complaints that were made by the race that was in bondage, that they were required to make bricks without straw. That was hard enough; but we oftentimes ask our judicial craftsmen to make the true and enduring wall of legal precedent from straw alone, ancient, moldy and well threshed. [Laughter.] Of course, it isn't our fault at all times, because there is such an abundance of material from which we must select. I took occasion last year to speak about the horde of Huns that was consuming our substance, and adding to the white man's burden, but now the Scherer is at hand [laughter], making diligent and persistent search for the golden fleece. All that we can do is to pray, if we are not of the class to which the efficacy of prayer is denied, that the Lord should temper the wind to the shorn lambs of the profession. [Laughter.]

But now some other things are to be noted, because it oftentimes occurs that the poor, patient hod carrier, as he is on his skyward way, is met by a brick or mortar from the scaffolding falling carelessly, and down he goes. We experience just exactly such misfortunes. There are three ways, as I take it you will have already observed, in which you meet misfortune and your clients come to grief in the zigzag way from the exultant beginning of a litigation to its mournful close. The first is when the court lands a right hook on the point of the jaw and you go to kingdom come, no questions asked or answered.

[Laughter.] That is quick and merciful, too, because it saves you that agony of suspense when you are alternating between hope and fear. The second way is when they fence a little while with you, when they ward off your blow, and when they will make you believe that in the end they are going to throw up the sponge and let you carry off the belt; but, look out; the first thing you know a solar plexus knocks you over. [Laughter.] Now, in that case we feel better, because we all take a little pride in the idea that we can stand up against a judicial Sharkey or Jeffries and not be knocked out in the first round. The third way is when they tell you the points you make are good; you have argued them in exceedingly strong and forcible fashion, and, very likely, if that had been the idea at the origin of the suit, it might have been successful. But it is too late when you get up where they are, and your client must get whipped by what they call the justice of the law. That is the aggravating way, because they tell you how near you came to catching your hare, but you can't have the pleasure of cooking it, because some less experienced huntsman at an earlier period of the chase started the dog on the wrong trail. [Laughter.]

In the course of these remarks you will notice that I have made use of some expressions, from which you might think that I have been devoting my time to reading accounts of these gentle encounters that take place under the Horton law, but it isn't true; you are not always to take words exactly in the way they are used, nor are you to judge of the meaning exactly from what people say, and you will pardon me if I digress a little from this subject that was given me by the old stager I have already mentioned; perhaps it isn't exactly germane to that subject, but yet it is just about as germane as a good deal of the stock we carry up on the hill for the judicial fanningmill that operates in the cloistered precincts of the Capitol. [Laughter.]

Members of our profession have somehow confused the use of terms, and you will pardon me for speaking about it here; that is, in referring to a portion of the apparel of the judges of our highest court, and calling it a gown. Now, bear in mind, I am in favor of the distinguishing mark, by which the judge is taken out from the class of the individual, but you will see