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338 this Library was completely destroyed in the great fire in Chicago in 1871, it has since then grown to the number of about twenty-two thousand bound volumes,—doubtless one of the largest Law Libraries in this country. It increases by its ordinary purchases at the rate of about one thousand volumes annually. Through Julius Rosenthal of the Chicago Bar, the librarian of the Law Institute, we received the picture which appears at the beginning of this article.

Five prizes are offered to students at this school as rewards of merit. The Horton annual prize of fifty dollars is awarded to the member of the graduating class, who is adjudged to have prepared the best thesis or brief on some legal question. For the thesis second in excellence produced by a member of the graduating class, the Faculty offer a prize of twenty-five dollars. For the best general proficiency in the Senior Class, the Faculty offer a prize of fifty dollars. Also for the best general proficiency in the Junior Class the Faculty offer a prize of twenty-five dollars. The Faculty also offer a prize of fifty dollars for the best oration delivered at Commencement, to be awarded by a committee sitting in the audience.

April 14, 1888, an Alumni Association was formed, which has since issued a catalogue of the Alumni, Officers, and Instructors of Union College of Law.

JAMES L. HIGH.

About eight hundred and seventy-six students had been graduated at this school up to and inclusive of the graduating class of 1888. The class of 1889 will bring the number of graduates almost up to one thousand. Three hundred and ninety-five of those graduates are here in Chicago. Four of those in Chicago are now upon the bench, one of them, Gwynn Garnett, being Chief-Justice of the Appellate Court. Several of them are Masters in Chancery, and one is the City Attorney. Others stand in the front rank of the Chicago Bar, and others still are among Chicago's representative business men.

As in Chicago, so throughout the Central, Southern, Western and Northwestern States, the graduates of this school have laid its foundations deep in the social fabric. The Law School already feels the strong pulse of this great power.

Chicago is pre-eminently a fit place for a Law School. There are here twenty Judges sitting in State Courts of record (not including Justices of the Peace), and two and sometimes three Judges holding Federal Courts; and even with this great judicial force all cases can not be tried in a year from the time they are begun.

As certainly as Chicago shall become the heart of the commerce of this continent, so surely will it be the place of great litigations, great lawyers, great judges, great law-writers, great law-libraries, and, in consequence, the place of a great law school,—the Union College of Law.