Page:The Diothas, or, A far look ahead (IA diothasorfarlook01macn).pdf/364

 in varying proportions, the characteristics of both the foregoing classes.

"Of all these, the lawyer class is by far the most pernicious. As a class they foster crime and fraud, both by their active opposition to the enactment of effectually deterrent laws, but chiefly by holding out the prospect of almost certain escape through the wide meshes of such inadequate laws as do exist. They swarm in our legislatures, where their influence on law-making is purely mischievous. To them we owe that wonderful style of oratory known as 'congressional,' that unique combination of inflated verbiage with appeals to the lowest considerations of self-interest and prejudice. While they might have as audience the most numerous and most generally intelligent people ever addressed by an orator, most of them seem unable to rise above the impression that they are still haranguing the twelve prize-imbeciles of the neighborhood, assembled in the district court-house.

"In no other country has the judiciary been intrusted with such important functions as in this, in none has the legal profession been so sure an avenue to distinction; yet in none are the laws so clumsily constructed, in none are they so feebly enforced. Are not our courts a by-word throughout Christendom? Is there any country in Europe, Turkey perhaps excepted, where life and property are so feebly protected by the law as among us? Has it not come to this, that the foulest and most cowardly assassin feels confident of impunity, provided he is able to retain the services of one of those convenient accessories after the fact, who hire themselves out, not to commit murder indeed, but to further the assassin's