This poor

deserve to be strung up. But for him, I woman had observed our peace would be made. We should already wretched plight; she had invited us in, have got Alsace and Lorraine; and the asking us where we were from, and we Emperor Napoleon, at the head of the had told her of our misfortunes. She her army of Metz, would have been on his self had told us that there remained a few way to restore order at Paris." bundles of hay in the loft, and that we might take them, as she had no need for them; the Germans having eaten her cow.

At every convoy of wounded their indignation mounted higher. They thought it perfectly natural and proper that they should set fire to us, devastate our country, plunder and shoot us; but for us to defend ourselves was infamous!

Is it possible to imagine a baser hypocrisy? For they did not believe what they were saying: they wanted to make us think that our cause was a bad one; yet how could there be a holier and a more glorious one?

We climbed up there to sleep by night, and we drew up the ladder after us, listening to the rain plashing on the roof and running off the tiles.

George had but ten sous left, and I had nothing, when, on the third day, as we were lying in the hay-loft, about two in the morning, the bugle sounded. Something had happened: an order had come I don't know what.

Of course every Frenchman, from the We listened attentively. There were oldest to the youngest - and principally hurrying footsteps; the butts of the musthe women prayed for Gambetta's suc-kets were rattling on the pavement; they cess, and more than once tears of emotion were assembling, falling in, and in all didropped at the thought that, perhaps, he rections were cries: might save us. Crowds of young men left the country to join him, and then the Prussians burdened their parents with a war contribution of fifty francs a day. They were ruining them; and yet this did not prevent others from following in numerous bands.

The Prussians threatened with the galleys whosoever should connive at the flight, as they called it, of these volunteers, whether by giving them money, or supplying them with guides, or by any other means. Violence, cruelty, falsehood - all sorts of means seemed good to the Germans to reduce us to submission; but arms were the least resorted to of all these means, because they did not wish to lose men, and in fighting they might have done so.

"The drivers! the drivers! where are they?"

The commander shouted furiously.

was swearing; he

"Fetch them here! find them! shoot the vagabonds!"

We did not stir a finger.

Suddenly the door burst open. The Prussians demanded in German and in French: "Where are the drivers - those Alsacian drivers ?"

The aged dame answered not a word; she shook her head, and looked as deaf as a post, just as usual. At last, out, they rushed again. The rascals had indeed seen the trap-door in the ceiling, but it seems they were in a hurry, and could not find a ladder without losing time. At last, whether they saw it or not, presently we heard the tramping of the men in the mud, the cracking of the whips, the rolling of the carts, and then all was silent.

The battalion had disappeared.

Then only, after they had left half-anhour, the kind old woman below began to call us. "You can come down," she said; they are gone now."

We had stopped three days at the village of Jametz in the direction of Montmédy. It was in the latter part of October; the rain was pouring; George and I had been received by an old Lorraine womau, tall and spare, Mother MarieJeanne, whose son was serving in Metz. She had a small cottage by the roadside, with a little loft above, which you reached" by a ladder, and a small garden behind, entirely ravaged. A few ropes of onions, a few peas and beans in a basket, were all her provisions. She concealed nothing; and whenever a Prussian came in to ask for anything, she feigned deafness and answered nothing. Her misery, her broken windows, her dilapidated walls, and the little cupboard left wide open, soon induced these greedy gluttons to go somewhere else, supposing there was nothing for them there.

And we came down.

The poor woman said, laughing heartily, "Now you are safe! Only you must lose no time; there might come an order to catch you. There, eat that."

She took out of the cupboard a large basin full of soup made of beans; for she used to cook enough for three or four days at a time and warmed it over the fire.

"Eat it all; never mind me! I have got more beans left."

There was no need for pressing, and in; a couple of minutes the basin was empty. The good woman looked on with pleasure, and George said to her: "We have not had such a meal for a week."

"So much the better! I am glad to have done you any service! And now go. I wish I could give you some money; but I have none."

"You have saved our lives," I said. "God grant that you may see your son again! But I have another request to make before we go."

"What is it, then?"
"Leave to give you a kiss."

"Ah, gladly, my poor Alsacians, with all my heart! I am not pretty, as I used to be; but it is all the same.'

And we kissed her as we would a mother. When we went to the door, the daylight was breaking.

ing-two large Alsacian wagons; they are escorted by hussars."

We had just stopped at a grocer's shop in the market square, and were asking the woman who kept this little shop if there was no watchmaker in the place for my cousin wished to sell his watch, which he had hidden beneath his shirt since we had left Droulingen and the woman was coming down the steps to point out the spot, when the old man began to cry, "Here come the Alsacian carts!'

Immediately, without waiting for more, we set off at a run to the other end of the village; but near to a little river, whose name I cannot remember, just over a clump of pollard willows, we caught the glitter of a couple of helmets, and this made us take a path along the river-side, which was then running over in consequence of the heavy rains. We went on thus a con"Before you lies the road to Dun-sur-siderable distance, sometimes having the Meuse," she said, "don't take that; that water up to our knees. is the road the Prussians have taken: no In about half-an-hour we were getting doubt the commander has given a descrip- out of these reed-beds, and had just caught tion of you in the next village. But here sight, above the hill on our left, of the steeis the road to Metz by Damvillers and ple of another village, when a cry of "Wer Etain; follow that. If you are stopped, da!"* stopped us short, near a deserted say that your horses were worked to death, hut two or three hundred paces from the and you were released." first house. At the same moment a landwehr started out of the empty house, his rifle pointed at us, and with his finger ou the trigger.

This poor old woman was full of good sense. We pressed her hand again, with tears in our eyes, and then we set off, following the road she had pointed out

to us.

I should be very much puzzled now to tell you all the villages we passed between Jametz and Rothalp. All that country between Metz, Montmédy, aud Verdun was swarming with cavalry and infantry, living at the expense of the people, and keeping them, as it were, in a net, to eat them as they were wanted. The troops of the line, and especially the gunners, kept around the fortresses; the rest, the landwehr in masses, occupied even the smallest hamlets, and made requisitions everywhere.

In one little village between Jametz and Damvillers, we heard on our right a sharp rattle of musketry along a road, and George said to me; "Behind there our battalion is engaged. All I hope is that the brave commander who talked of shooting us may get a ball through him, and your corporal too."

The village people standing at their doors said, "It is the francs-tireurs!"

And joy broke out in every countenance, especially when an old man ran up from the path by the cemetery, crying: "Two carriages, full of wounded, are com

George, seeing no means of escape, answered, "Gute freund!"†

"Stand there," " cried the German: "don't stir, or I fire."

We were of course, obliged to stop, and only ten minutes afterwards, a picket coming out of the village to relieve the sentinel, carried us off like vagrants to the mayoralty-house. There the captain of the landwehr questioned us at great length, as to who we were, whence we came, the cause of our departure, and why we had no passes.

We repeated that our horses were dead of overwork, and that we had been told to return home; but he refused to believe us. At last, however, as George was asking him for money to pursue our journey, he began to exclaim: "To the with you, scoundrels! Am I to furnish you with provisions and rations! Go; and mind you don't come this way again, or it will be worse for you!"

We went out very well satisfied.

At the bottom of the stairs, George was thinking of going up again to ask for a pass; but I was so alarmed lest this ↑ "A friend."

"Who goes there?"

captain should change his mind, that I it upon the table in a thousand fragments. I saw that he was losing his head, and cried to him: “ George, for heaven's sake don't: you will get us taken up!"

upon a bit of straw matting, just as in our of England, are sufficiently similar to
own beds.
Rising in the morning at the make its experience full of instruction for
dawn of day, we found ourselves covered us.
with hoar frost, and George, straining his
eyes in the distance, asked: “Do you know
that place down there, Christian?"
I looked.

Why, it is Château-Salins! "
Ah! now all was well.

When England sent out her colonies, the bar, like most of our other institutions, reappeared upon the new soil, and soon gained a position similar to that it held at home, not so much owing to any deliberate purpose on the part of those who led and ruled the new communities (for the Puritan settlers at least held lawyers in slight esteem), as because the conditions of a

At Château-Salins lived an old cousin, Desjardins, the first dyer in the country. Desjardins' grandfather and ours had married sisters before the Revolution. He was a Luther- progressive society required its existence. an, and even a Calvinist; we were Catho-. lics; but, nevertheless, we knew each other, and were fond of each other as very near relations.

From Macmillan's Magazine.
THE LEGAL PROFESSION IN AMERICA.
BY JAMES BRYCE.

That disposition to simplify and popularize law, to make it less of a mystery and bring it more within the reach of an average citizen, which is strong in modern Europe, is of course nowhere so strong as in the colonies, and naturally tended in America to lessen the individuality of the legal profession and do away with the antiquated rules which had governed it at home. On the other hand, the increasing complexity of relations in modern society, AMONG English institutions there is per- the development of so many distinct arts haps none more curiously and distinctively and departments of applied science, brings English than our bar, with its strong polit- into an always clearer light the importance ical traditions, its aristocratic sympathies, of a division of labour, and, by attaching its intense corporate spirit, its singular re- greater value to special knowledge and lation (half of dependence, half of patron-skill, necessarily limits and specializes the age) to the solicitors, its friendly control activity of every profession. In spite, over its official superiors, the judges. Any therefore, of the democratic aversion to serious changes in the organization of such a body are sure to be symptomatic of changes in English society and politics at large, and must have an influence far beyond the limits of the profession. Such changes have of late years begun to be earnestly discussed; and in the prospect of their attracting much attention during the next few years, it becomes a matter of more than merely speculative interest to determine how far the arrangements of our bar are natural, how far artificial; or in other words, to ascertain what form the legal profession would tend to assume if it were left entirely to itself, and governed by the ordinary laws of demand and supply. Suppose a country where this has happened, where the profession, originally organized upon the English model, has been freed from those restrictions which ancient custom imposes on it here, what new aspects or features will it develop? Will the removal of these restrictions enable it better to meet the needs of an expanding civilization? And will this gain, if attained, be counterbalanced by its exposure to new dangers and temptations? Such a country we find beyond the Atlantic: a country whose conditions, however different in points of detail from those

befin

class organizations, the lawyers in America soon acquired professional habits and an esprit de corps similar to that of their brethren in England; and some forty years ago they enjoyed a power and social consideration relatively greater than the bar has ever held on this side the Atlantic. To explain fully how they gained this place, and how they have now to some extent lost it, would involve a discussion on American politics generally. I shall not therefore attempt to do more than describe some of those aspects of the United States bar which are likely to be interesting to an English lawyer, indicating the points in which their arrangements differ from ours, and endeavouring to determine what light their experience throws on those weighty questions regarding the organization of the profession which are beginning to be debated among us.

In the United States, as in most parts of Europe and most of our colonies, there is no distinction between barristers and attorneys. Every lawyer, or "counsel,' which is the term whereby they prefer to be known, is permitted to take every kind of business: he may argue a cause in the Supreme Federal Court at Washington, or write six-and-eightpenny letters from a

shopkeeper to an obstinate debtor. He¡ taking up the case. As he rises, it may himself conduct all the proceedings in becomes easier for him to select his busia cause, confer with the client, issue the ness, and when he has attained real emiwrit, draw the declaration, get together nence he may confine himself entirely to the evidence, prepare the brief, and man- the higher walks, arguing cases and giving age the trial when it comes on in court. opinions, but leaving all the the preparaNeedless to add that he is employed by tory work and all the communications and deals with, not another professional with the client to be done by the juniors man as our barristers do, but with the who are retained along with him. He is, client himself, who seeks him out and in fact, with one important difference, makes his bargain directly with him, just to which I shall recur presently, very as we in England call in a physician or much in the position of an English Queen's make our bargain with an architect. In Counsel, and his services are sought, not spite, however, of this union of all a law-only by the client, but by another counsel, yer's functions in the same person, consid- or firm of counsel, who have an important erations of practical convenience have in suit in hand, to which they feel themselves many places established a division of la- unequal. He may, however, be, and often bour similar to what exists here. Part- is, retained directly by the client; and in nerships are formed in which one member that case he is allowed to retain a junior undertakes the court work and the duties to aid him, or to desire the client to do so, of the advocate, while another or others naming the man he wishes for, a thing transact the rest of the business, see the which the etiquette of the English bar clients, conduct correspondence, hunt up forbids. In every great city, there are evidence, prepare witnesses for examina- several practitioners of this kind, men who tion, and manage the thousand little things undertake only the weightiest business at for which a man goes to his attorney. the largest fees; and even in the minor The merits of the plan are obvious. It towns court practice is in the hands of a saves the senior member from drudgery, comparatively small knot of people. In and from being distracted by petty details; one New England city, for instance, it introduces the juniors to business, and enables them to profit by the experience and knowledge of the mature practitioner; it secures to the client the benefit of a closer attention to details than a leading counsel could be expected to give, while yet the whole of his suit is managed in the Whatever disadvantages this system of same office, and the responsibility is not one undivided legal profession has, and it divided, as in England, between two inde- will appear that they are not inconsiderpendent personages. Nevertheless, owing able, it has one conspicuous merit, on to causes which it is not easy to explain, which any one who is accustomed to watch the custom of forming legal partnerships is the career of the swarm of young men one which prevails much more extensively who annually press into the Temple or in some parts of the Union than in others. Lincoln's Inn full of bright hopes, may be In Boston and New York, for instance, it pardoned for dwelling. It affords a far is common; in the towns of Connecticut better prospect of speedy employment and and in Philadelphia one is told that it is an active professional life, than the beginrather the exception. Even apart from the ner who is not “ backed," as we say, can arrangement which distributes the various look forward to in England. Private kinds of business among the members of a friends can do much more than with us to firm, there is a certain tendency for work help a young man, since he gets business of a different character to fall into the direct from the client instead of from an hands of different men. A beginner is of attorney; he may pick up little bits of course glad enough to be employed in any work which his prosperous seniors do not way, and takes willingly the smaller jobs; care to have, may thereby learn those dehe will conduct a defence in a police-court, tails of practice of which, in England, a or manage the recovery of a tradesman's barrister often remains ignorant, may gain petty debt. I remember having been told experience and confidence in his own powby a very eminent counsel that when an ers, may teach himself how to speak and old apple-woman applied to his son how to deal with men, may gradually form to have her market-licence renewed, which a connection among those for whom he for some reason had been withdrawn, has managed trifling matters, may comhe had insisted on the young man's mend himself to the good opinion of older

whose population is about 50,000, there are, one is told, some sixty or seventy practising lawyers, of whom not more than ten or twelve ever conduct a case in court, the remainder doing what we should call attorney's and conveyancer's work.