kly or monthly, as the
case might be, to punish evil-doers of the district. Many of these
people in some of the relations of life were quite admirable, but when
it came to any question of the protection of privilege, the
preservation of property, or the rights in general of their superior
class, these landowners were as merciless in the North Wales district
as in many other parts of the country. Scorn and rage grew in the
heart of young Lloyd George as he realized that these individuals had
no claim over their fellows in personal worth or understanding, that
they were practically unassailable by reason of their ramparts of
wealth, that they lived in comfort, if not in luxury, while those whom
they dominated were struggling hard for a bare subsistence. I can
imagine the youth reciting the couplet which sets out the position:

God bless the squire and his relations,
And keep us in our proper stations.

Worldly knowledge and bookish knowledge were acquired by Lloyd George
during the next few years while he was going through his law course in
the office of a firm of solicitors in the neighboring little town of
Portmadoc. While there he had further opportunity for developing his
natural powers of oratory, for he became a member of a local debating
society which regularly had set battles on all kinds of
topics--political, literary, and social. At twenty-one his
preliminaries ended and he became an admitted solicitor competent to
practise law and to appear as an advocate in the local civil and
criminal courts. He was penniless, he had no friends likely to help
him in his profession. But he had confidence in himself. Hidden fires
were burning behind those steady dark-blue eyes of his. The office
work which he undertook to secure the money to buy his official robe
was accomplished with a run. Then he put up a little brass plate
announcing to all and sundry in the locality that he was prepared to
practise law. Though he had no rich friends, he possessed certain
assets in the reputation he had made among the residents of the
district by his sparkling good humor, his ready sympathy with distress,
and his vivacious wit in debate. Individuals of the humbler class soon
began to come to the young solicitor for advice and assistance. He
found himself engaged to defend people charged with small offenses
before the local magistrates and to fight cases connected with small
money transactions before the county court--wh