years. And Mr. Churchill is not a lawyer.

But this dislike of lawyers in the abstract has a certain basis. It is an
old dislike. You remember that remark of Johnson's when he was asked on a
certain occasion who was the man who had left the room: "I don't like
saying unpleasant things about a man behind his back; _but I believe he is
an attorney."_ And Carlyle was not much more civil when he described a
barrister as "a loaded blunderbuss "--if you bought him he blew your
opponent's brains out; if your opponent bought him he blew yours out. His
weapon is the law, but his object is not justice. As often as not he aims
at defeating justice, and the more skilful a lawyer he is the more
injustice he succeeds in doing. It is this detachment from the merits of a
case, this deliberate repudiation of conscience in his business relations
that makes him so suspect. Of course he has a very sound reply. "It is my
business to put my client's case, and my opponent's business to put his
client's case. And it is the business of the judge and jury to see that
justice is done as between us." That is true, but it does not get rid of
the suspicion that attaches to a man who fights for the guilty or the
innocent with equal fervour.

And then he deals in such a tricky article. When Sancho Panza was Governor
of the Island of Barataria he administered justice. If he had been the
Governor of the Island of Britain he would have administered the law, and
his decisions would have been very different. Law has about the same
relation to justice that grammar has to Shakespeare. If Shakespeare were
put in the dock and tried by the grammarians he would be condemned as a
rogue and vagabond, and, similarly, justice is not infrequently hanged by
the lawyers. We must have law just as we must have grammar, but we have no
love for either of them. They are dry, bloodless sciences, and we look
askance at those who practice them. You may be the greatest rascal of your