either, the balance due to the successful party was exactly £4. 3s. 2d.! The whole of this mighty feud began in the irregular service of an attachment for non-payment of some fifteen pounds of costs, but enough vindictive feeling was displayed to have done credit to a Highland or American chief. It is our duty to uphold our clerks where they are decidedly right; it is not less so to rebuke them with severity where they are clearly wrong, even while we make large allowance for their zeal : but above all, it behooves us, and I wish I could honestly say that I had always adhered to my own doctrine, to guard ourselves against all participation in their feuds.

Now and then, however, our professional squabbles are entirely of our own creation; and then they are unpardonable. There is but one case in which I can allow an apology for them; and that is where, with the full consciousness that our client is morally, if not legally right, and that he has been victimized by a swindler, we find our professional opponent lending himself to the fraud of his client, and on the convenient but erroneous principle that it is his duty to make the best he can of

his employer's case, supporting him by technical astuteness. I have very recently experienced this provocation. I was destitute of evidence to prove that a man who had filed a bill against my client for indemnity against a covenant to repair, had already received a sum of £400 to cover the risk. I knew it to be the fact, because the man himself had admitted it to me long before litigation, or even the risk of it, was ever contemplated; but the admission was made in confidential conversation, and therefore I could not be a witness. By the advice of my counsel, and under the impression that the plaintiff was a man of principle, as he had long made loud religious professions, I filed a cross bill for a discovery; but I was mistaken in my calculation: he got into the hands of a solicitor otherwise respectable, who from peculiar circumstances must have known how the fact really stood, but who felt little scruple in putting in an ingenious answer that successfully shuffled out of the admission, and thus our expectation of evidence was defeated, and the man pocketed his £400 twice over, gratefully appropriating a part of it to present his unscrupulous adviser with a piece of plate

ultra his costs! I hope for the sake of both parties that it was unmerited. Cases like this cannot fail to raise the bile; and more especially when, as in that which I have been mentioning, one feels assured that the proceedings are pressed on merely for costs, against a perfect conviction of their injustice. But it is very rare that we have such fair excuse for our irritability.

We should steadily bear in mind, that after all, we are only the attorneys, not the principals in the cause; it is generally from losing sight of this, that we are betrayed into excitement and ill-will; exactly in proportion as we do lose sight of it, and identify ourselves with our client's feelings, we not only expose ourselves to the risk of quarreling, but incapacitate ourselves from discharging our duty to him with calm and dispassionate judgment. When however, it occurs, as of course it will occasionally, that we are opposed to a man who blusters and writes angry letters, the same course should be taken as with the affidavit-monger-avoid all personal interviews, and write your replies as laconically as is consistent with courtesy; a long letter, unless confined to simple explana

tion, will rarely produce peace; and it is an excellent maxim that I learnt from one of the most honorable and respected men in the profession, Mr. Greaves, never to answer an angry communication, till it has lain four-and-twenty hours on your desk.

Whenever I see an attorney bristling up his quills in porcupine fashion, before any body thinks of attacking him, I always write him down an ass, unless his juvenile appearance can plead inexperience in behalf of ignorance: ours is of necessity a rough profession in many of its encounters, and we must expect rough knocks in it, and learn to bear them; but I deprecate our needlessly provoking each other to inflict them, and I am convinced, that by following the principles I have suggested, many a blow may be saved, and the disposition to give the blow often restrained.

While I sincerely believe that there are very many in the profession with whom we may safely trust ourselves in frank discussion of the merits of our case, with a view to avoid expense and possibility to put an end to threatened litigation, I am compelled to say as a general rule, that it is by no means prudent to enter

into any irregular correspondence, either by letter or in person, even to restore peace. I wish it were otherwise, for I am convinced that justice might often be done between contending parties, without law and at little costs, if their respective solicitors could place that confidence in each other which would insure an honest overture being received with equal cordiality. It is clear that every difference involving no legal question, can only arise from a misunderstanding on facts, or from irritation of temper; and all experienced attorneys are well aware that not one case in fifty brought under our notice, will be found to turn upon a new point of law, or upon such nice distinctions of circumstance as to take it out of an acknowledged principle. Where error as to fact, or excitement of temper involves men of respectability in a controversy about their respective rights, how easy is it for a clear-headed attorney to get at the truth by a little open conversation with his opponent, if that opponent will only meet him with the same laudable purpose of setting the parties right! nor, if I may judge from my own experience, is this conciliatory disposition a losing game in the