e to a considerable extent lessened
the fees and restricted the occupation of lawyers. But it can be
said that the leading members of the legal profession proposed and
adopted these reforms, and always advocated any legislation that
tended to simplify and cheapen litigation and at the same time
protect life, property or reputation.

While these causes were operating against lawyers, agents of nature,
hitherto unknown, undiscovered, and wonderful, were being developed,
which were to completely revolutionize the methods of travel, the
transportation of goods, and the modes of production, thus opening
new fields for the employment of lawyers. Instead of assault and
battery cases, suits for slander and the collection of debts, the
attention of lawyers was directed to the development of railroads,
banking institutions and other corporations.

The construction of railroads caused a most remarkable revolution
in the habits and industries of our people. The first built in
Ohio ran from Lake Erie or the Ohio River, north or south into the
center of the state. Among them was the Sandusky & Mansfield road,
originally a short line from Sandusky to Monroeville, intended to
be run by horse power. It was soon changed to a steam road, the
power being furnished by a feeble, wheezing engine, not to be
compared with the locomotive of to-day. It was then extended to
Mansfield, and subsequently to Newark, but was not completed until
1846. It was built of cross-ties three feet apart, connected by
string pieces of timber about six by eight inches in dimensions,
and a flat iron bar two and one-half inches wide and five-eighths
of an inch thick. The worthlessness and danger of such a railroad
was soon demonstrated by innumerable accidents caused by the spreading
of rails, the "snaking" of the flat bars of iron through the cars,
and the feebleness of the engines. Both road and engines soon had
to be replaced. In every case which I recall the original investment
in the early railroads was lost.

It was thought when the first railroad from Sandusky to Mansfield
was completed that the road would save the farmer five or six cents
a bushel on his wheat in its transit to the lake, and yield a
handsome profit to the stockholders of the railroad. That was the
great benefit anticipated. No one then thought of the movement by
railroad, over vast distances, of grain, stock, and merchandise,
but regarded the innovation as a substitute for th