ich was the civil
tribunal. Clients found in the young fellow not only a shrewd lawyer,
but a friend who entered into their cases with ardor.

He differed from other lawyers of the country towns, men who had grown
prosperous in their profession, in so far as he always put up a
tremendous fight, whatever the chances of success. He was, moreover,
never hampered by deference for the bench. It was the practice of the
magistrates, most of them local land-owners and all of them belonging
to the propertied classes, to browbeat any local solicitors who showed
signs of presumption--that is to say, of independence and lack of what
was regarded as proper respect in their conduct of cases before the
court. Lloyd George said things and did things which the most
experienced and successful solicitors of the district would have shrunk
from as ruinous to their business. He made it a practice never to
waste a word in any subservience to magistrates who showed an
overbearing disposition. The magistrates, to their amazement, found
they could not overawe the young upstart. When one realizes the
unchallenged caste rule of those local bigwigs and the extraordinary
respect which was paid to them by advocates and litigants alike, it is
easy to understand the amazement and the shock which came upon them
when young Lloyd George not only refused to submit to their bullying,
but stood up to them and even thrust wounding words at them. It was an
unheard-of proceeding. Some of these magistrates, lifelong supporters
of Church and state, must sometimes have wondered why the presumptuous
youth was not struck dead by Providence for his temerity. He, on his
part, was never so happy as when he was shocking them. Clients quickly
grew in number. The farmers found him an enthusiastic defender of
their rights, the shopkeepers trusted him with their small business
worries, and if there were any poachers to be defended where was there
to be found so able, so sympathetic, and so fearless an advocate as
young Lloyd George? All this time it must be remembered he was but
early in the twenties, little more than a boy.

Many instances might be given of his audacity in the face of the lordly
magistrates before whom he appeared. Here is one that is typical.
Lloyd George was retained to defend four men who were charged with
illegally taking fish from prohibited waters--in other words, accused
of poaching, the most deadly sin of all to the owners of the lan