degree from Columbia College, but until you have felt the quickening influence of a client's presence, until his coming has aroused your dormant possibilities, you can earn no fame, accumulate no estate, and you cannot flatter yourselves that you have attained the dignity of being a lawyer. Therefore it is that whenever the subject of the attorney is treated you will always find that the client is coupled with him, as in those other subjects that I have spoken of-husband and wife, guardian and ward, etc., but I can conceive of the attorney without a client much more readily than of a client without an attorney.

You have all of you read, being students of Columbia College, how Prometheus stole the fire from heaven to animate the senseless clay; so, too, with the attorneyobscurity and despondency are his companions until the client has given him animation and life, and then together they rule the world.

An exaggeration, you will say, but it is not. No great question can be or has been settled except by arms, or by judicial decision, and the judicial function can only be exercised when attorney and client set the springs in motion. All our political freedom and progress depends in a great measure on the fact that we have attorneys, and that attorneys have clients. The majestic figure of Marshall would not loom up in our calendar of great judges, if attorney and client had not appeared hand in hand before him; nor would his great and brilliant successors and brethren of the same bench have had the opportunity to lay down our political landmarks, and define the rights of government and citizen, but for this.

Nothing of any practical value ever has been or can be done under our system of government, unless settled by the law, and

the law is powerless until the attorney and client together set it in motion and permit it to perform its right function.

But conceding this, I feel bound to say in addition, that, if we look to either modern or ancient literature, if we study the records of the past, we will find that the attorney has always borne a bad name; I will not say character, for that may be taken as applying to the moral qualities of the man, and those I am not passing upon but it is only true to say that his reputation has always been of the worst.

I will presently make a distinction between the attorney and the barrister, but for the present we will look at it as if they had always been united as they are with us now, under the one name of lawyer, or of advocate. English literature is full of allusions to him, but always depicts him in the same colors, shrewd, adroit, unscrupulous; never generous nor chivalrous. Writers of fiction, who reflect and mould public opinion, have vied with each other in painting him in unflattering colors. Quirk, Gammon, and Snap have earned undying fame. Uriah Heep will go to posterity with Tidd's practice in his hand, known to many who have never heard of Lord Mansfield, and some of you may, no doubt, and others of you who are graduates of Columbia, must remember that charming ode of Horace, in which he speaks of "Mercuri facundi nepos Atlantis," but I cannot help observing that he goes on and describes him as "collidum quisquid placuit jocoso," or, as old Swart translated it, a hundred years ago, a sly practitioner to conceal whatever you choose in merry theft."

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One of the stories of a conspicuous and beautiful speaker, whom you all know by name, illustrates this tendency. It relates to an attorney by the name of Strange who was on his death-bed. He called his wife,

and he told her that he wanted no inscription upon his tomb except these words: "Here lies an honest lawyer." She said "Why is that?" "Well," he said, "nothing more is necessary; when people go by they will see the epitaph and they will say "That's Strange.'"

But this indicates a degree of modesty on the part of an attorney that is against all probability, and I would undertake, without a knowledge of the facts, to say that it is untrue.

That story, ancient as it is, shows slightly the prejudice against the attorney, but it will not be necessary to discourage you by multiplying examples.

I have been unable to find all through history, from that time down, any kind words for the attorney, for the prejudice against him is a deep-rooted one. Perhaps it may be in the decline, perhaps not. My own hope is that Columbia College will turn out from her doors such men that the prejudice will at least be diminished.

But you will observe that there is a distinction, when you read the books, between the attorney and the counsel, or as he is sometimes called, the barrister. In England they have abolished the title but have preserved the function under the name of solicitor.

There are various reasons why the office of barrister has been one of increasing importance and dignity. The attorney can not address the court, but must find a medium of communication, and a dumb lawyer certainly cannot be highly esteemed. His position is one of palpable inferiority. If there is any underhand work, it is done by the attorney and is generally suspected by the other side. He sees (and tampers with) the witnesses; he proposes the machinations and devices and furnishes the means of defrauding justice of her due.

Whereas the barrister utters noble sentiments, is spoken to by the court, airs his eloquence, and blames the attorney when things go wrong. Then the law, jealous and suspicious of his unscrupulousness, limits his compensation. How can a client-a self-respecting client-esteem the man who is forbidden to charge more than eighteen pence for reading, or two and sixpence for writing a letter, and yet grows rich on the multiplication of such items?

As we have no such distinctions, in considering the subject, I shall treat the attorney as embracing all grades and kinds.

There is much loose and idle talk about the duties of the attorney. Some maxims that sound well are laid down by ethical teachers, but the trouble is that the maxims are so high and require so much self-denial that few will undertake to follow them. In law, as in everything else, there are heights. that men will sometimes reach. But general rules are made for the mass and are of no value if they require superhuman virtue to carry them out. The standard with us is high-it must be high; higher, I think, than in any other pursuit. But even attorneys are human. They desire to live out of their labor, to provide for their families, to lay aside some provision for old age. They will, as a rule, prefer wealthy clients to poor ones and will not consider themselves criminals because they do not always attach a sarcerdotal character to their profession. When the character of the profession goes down, it is evidence that the community at large is on an incline grade, for there has been no time when the honor of the profession has not compared favorably with the most favored of pursuits.

The first duty of an attorney is absolute loyalty and fidelity to the client. This is

the golden rule which he must never lose sight of. All personal considerations must yield to that. His contract and his duty both require it, and he may not omit anything within the limits of his own selfrespect that can serve the client.

Lord Brougham expressed his sentiments in the trial of Queen C. "An advocate in the discharge of his duty knows but one person in the world, his client, and no other. To save that client by all expedient means, at all hazards and cost to others, and amongst others himself, is the highest and most unquestioned of his duties, and he must not regard the alarm, the suffering, the torment, the destruction which he may bring upon others. Nay, separating even the duties of a patriot from those of an advocate, he must go on, reckless of consequences, even if his fate should unhappily be to involve his country in confusion."

This is evidently rhetoric-it sounds well; but Lord Brougham had an object and a meaning.

It is not true that the attorney knows but one person in the world; he knows the court, he knows himself, he knows his country, and there is some one to whom the attorney owes more than he does to his client, and that is to himself, and selfrespect teaches him what he owes to the court as well as to himself.

He is an officer of the court, a servant in the Temple of Justice, and as such he is bound to do nothing that will bring discredit upon the court, his own profession, or himself. He should always keep before him the distinction between the attorney who is a representative and mouthpiece of another and his own individual self. The two are distinct and should be so kept. Many of the difficulties in which honorable barristers and attorneys have found them

selves arise from the loss of this distinction. When counsel declare their personal belief in the integrity of their client, they are overstepping the line. What they believe or do not believe is of no moment or concern to any one. The function and duty of the attorney is to say and do for his client all that the client would do or say for himself if able intelligently to present it.

The rules of the ancient avocats were akin to the rules that governed the knight. The advocate was warned against taking just and unjust causes alike, or maintaining them by trickery or other disingenuousness; he was to respect the court; to be moderate in his charges; to make no bargain with his client for part of the fruits; he was to aid the innocent, no matter what happened to himself; he was to distinguish between the right and the wrong; he was to do justice to all; he was to reject no man, woman, or child because of poverty, or refuse his services to the oppressed. other words, like the brave knight Bayard, he was to be without fear and without reproach.

In

The attorney has the right to look to his profession for advancement, but it is a profession and not a trade. The rules of commerce will not apply. He does not deal on equal terms with the client. He may not drive hard bargains nor take advantage of the client's necessities. He should be a gentleman, which implies the doing of his duty and the preservation of his own dignity. Let him so act that he will not fear to have his conduct published to the world. Let him be truthful and brave. Let him not be awed in his duty by public clamor or by the frowns of judges. His conscience must be satisfied and not any other man's. Let him not set up a very high standard in words, for other peo

ple, and follow another for himself. Truth and loyalty, if faithfully observed, will carry him through many perils, and above all, when he is in doubt between two courses, one of which offers him a large reward and the other a small one or none, let him turn his back on the great tempta

tion. His self-respect cannot be reassured in money. And let him so act that Columbia will look upon him with pride, and hold him out as an example to those who have not had the advantage of her tuition nor the privilege of being numbered among her children.

This question is a comparative stranger to the law reports. It owes its introduction to the railroad. Though of recent origin, it is of large and growing importance, and interest therein is widespread.

Holders of first mortgage bonds desire to know whether they are in reality to stand first as regards security when the day of financial distress overtakes the corporation to which they have loaned their money. The public in general, the great mass of people who know little and care less about railroad securities, are interested in a railroad as a means of travel and traffic. They want to know what they are getting in return for franchises, land grants, and the many large powers given to these companies.

Some insist that there is an inherent right in the public to seize a road and run it for its own benefit after a corporation has demonstrated its own inability and inefficiency, even though first mortgage bondholders suffer. Bondholders, they say, contract on the basis of this possible contingency.

Students of constitutional law ask whether these certificates do not impair the obligation of contracts, and whether by their issue courts of equity are not taking private property for public use without due process of law.

A correct decision of this question involves a definition of the scope of the judicial function.

The State of Alabama has given us the leading case on this subject. It leads all others, prior or subsequent, in the powers it would confer upon receivers in the matter of these receivers' certificates.

Whether this decision be sound law, either upon principle or authority, it is the purpose of this article to determine.

The case of Meyer vs. Johnston is found in 53 Alabama, 237.

There were four mortgages upon the property of the Selma, Rome, and Dalton Railroad Company-as follows:

1. To Gazaway B. Lamar and William R. Hallett, dated July 1, 1852, to secure an issue of bonds amounting to $500,000, maturing July 1, 1872.

2. To Fellows, as trustee Reynolds, dated July 20, 1865.

of Walker

3. To James Johnston and John A. Stewart, as trustees to secure bonds to the extent of $5,000,000, dated October 1, 1867.

4. To James P. Wallace, to secure an issue of $6,000,000 of bonds, dated July 1, 1870.

On the 19th day of March, 1873, Johnston and Stewart, as trustees under the third mortgage above mentioned, filed a bill in equity to foreclose their mortgage. The bill alleges the insolvency of the defendant corporation, its default in the payment of interest, that "it is necessary for the protection of the mortgaged property, and to preserve it from ruin and decay, as well as to prevent interruption in the means of travel, and for the accommodation of the public, that a receiver be appointed," and it prays for the appointment of a receiver; that conflicting liens be adjusted and priorities settled; that the road and property be sold for their payment, and for general relief.

Thomas A. Walker and John Tinker