g the merits of a neighbor, Mr. Beasley, and he says, "Isaac,
what do you think of Mr. Beasley?" "Well," he says, "Marse Frank, I
reckon he is a pretty good man." "Well, there is one thing about Mr.
Beasley, he is always humbling himself." He says, "Marse Frank, you are
right; I don't know how you is, but I always mistrusts a man that runs
hisself down." [Laughter.] He says, "I don't know how you is, Marse
Frank, but I tell you how it is with me: this nigger scarcely ever says
no harm against hisself." So I say it of the legal profession--this
here nigger don't never scarcely say no harm against himself. [Great
laughter.]

Of course we are the best profession in the world, but if any of our
clients are standing at that door and listening to this oratory, I know
what their reflection is. They are laughing in their sleeves and saying:
"Watch him, watch him; did you ever hear lawyers talk as much for
nothing? Watch them; it is the funniest scene I ever saw. There are a
lot of lawyers with their hands in their own pockets." [Laughter.]

Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, another thing. We are not fooling with any
judges now. I know who I am talking to and how long I have been doing
it. Sometimes you can fool a judge into letting you have more time than
the rule allows; but with lawyers, enough is enough. We know exactly
when to put on the brakes with each other. We are not now earning fees
by the yard or charging by the minute, and when a man is through with
what he has to say, it is time to sit down, and all I have to say in
conclusion is, that the more I watch the legal profession and observe
it, the more I am convinced that with the great responsibility, with the
great trusts confided to it, with the great issues committed to its
keeping, with the great power it has to direct public feeling and public
sentiment, with the great responsibilities resulting, take it as a
mass--and there are plenty of rascals in it--but take it as a mass, and
measure it up, and God never made a nobler body in these United States.
[Applause.]

EDWARD OLIVER WOLCOTT

THE BRIGHT LAND TO WESTWARD

[Speech of Edward O. Wolcott at the eighty-second annual dinner of
the New England Society in the City of New York, December 22, 1887.
The President, ex-Judge Horace Russell, introduced the speaker as
follows: "It was an English lawyer who said that the farther he
went West the more he was convinced that the wise men came