Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 23.pdf/470

 The Green Bag

436

Were it feasible to introduce the English custom requiring barristers to wear gowns, our courts of law would gain in dignity, but this is not practicable without a division of the profession into barristers and solicitors, nor would it help matters if every rogue were allowed to assume a hypocritical garb. The barrister's robe might well be awarded to a select few as a badge of distinction, and this would be fortunate,

but how would the prejudice be over come, and by whom could the innovation be carried out? Much more is to be hoped for, from a wider diffusion of the etiquette of the United States Supreme Court, before which solemn tribunal none may appear to plead his cause except in a seemly frock coat. In the trying heat of our summer climate a latitude in dress should be conceded to the bar, but the bench may properly be permitted to swelter in

robes, for theirs is an occupation re quiring calmer deliberation. Let no lawyer, however, appear in the halls

REVISED EDITIONS SUGGESTION offered by Mr. Carlo P. Sawyer, librarian of the Chicago Bar Association, in favor of the sub

stitution of a system of supplemental volumes for periodical new editions of

law treatises, meets with the approval of the National corporalion Reporter, which says: — If the author of a one or two-volume text book would get out a supplemental volume at the end of say, ten years, the text and citations being distributed, by numbered paragraphs, ac cording to the scheme of the original work, and at the end of another ten years would get out a second supplemental volume, embracing b0!!! the material in the ﬁrst volume and subseqm’ilt decisions, there would be no reason for revising

the book more than once in a generation and the cost of the supplemental volume would b5 triﬂing compared to the cost of a second edition

The law publishers and text Write!’S no doubt have their own side of the question, and while the mercenary advantage of disposing of a new revised

edition may count for something with

of justice coatless or tennis racket in

them, the existing practice exists pri

hand, lest the Court grow envious and

marily as a matter of custom, no new

uncomfortable. And what about waist

method of keeping text-books up-to-date

coats? They are, it seems to us, a necessary instrumentality in the ad ministration of justice. But crash suits may in extreme circumstances be worn, though ﬂannels are at all times

having yet been devised, and 8150’

most improper.

to earlier editions unnecessary. In revising a law book to keep it abreast of the times, it is frequently

If lawyers will give heed to these sug

gestions the future cannot fail to bring forth a more decorous, if slightly less

undoubtedly, as the result of a convic tion that the needs of the practitioner are best served by placing at his dispOSal a complete volume rendering reference

necessary tions and not makesimply minortoalterations, add new Cilia‘ but

comfortable bar. HE great majority of the 16,000

lawyers in New York City are said to make not over a thousand dol lars a year. If they made more there would be much more trouble in the world, so honors are even. ¢r7zenectady Union.

to rewrite large portions of the text! or even to recast much of the orig'inal material. In such cases a supplemental volume vantage would rather obviously than an beadvantage' a disad' The vide object, a labor-saver, of course, andshould a supplement?11 be to pro‘

volume which would require diligeﬂt