such a nature are now brought under an agreement to divide their
fees with the central bureau.

Until the last half of the nineteenth century there were probably
no lawyers in this country whose average net income from year to
year was equal to that of the leaders of the English bar. In
1806 there was but one lawyer in New England with an annual
professional income of $10,000: until about 1860 there was none
in Connecticut, and probably not over a hundred in the entire
country.[Footnote: Parton, "Life of Aaron Burr." 153; Great
American Lawyers, III, 55.] In 1827, William Wirt was informed
by Justice Thompson of the Supreme Court of the United States
that "six, eight, and ten thousand dollars is considered great
practice in New York and ten thousand dollars the
_maximum_."[Footnote: Kennedy, "Memoirs of William Wirt,"
II, 209.] Thirty years later the same was true, except that
twenty thousand dollars had then become the highest annual
average, and that but of a very few.[Footnote: Parton, "Life of
Aaron Burr," 153.] Daniel Webster earned from $12,000 to $20,000
when at the height of his career.[Footnote: Harvey,
"Reminiscences of Daniel Webster," 84.]

The Civil War was the occasion of many important business
enterprises, and gave rise to much litigation. It brought also a
great increase of wealth to the North and West, and new and
greater investments of Northern capital in the South. From that
time the business of the leading lawyers in every State became
more remunerative. Incomes of $20,000 and $25,000 were
occasionally earned in the smaller States, and of four or five
times as much in the larger ones.