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Show E dm audi and His Big Income. I saw George F. Edmunds shaking the few locks of his bald head and spouting out an argument at the rate of $10 a word in the supreme court. He is said to make $50,000 nyear at the law, and I don't doubt it. William M. Evarts makes five time as muci as Chiof Justice Fuller out of his law practice, and Senator Mitchell, of Oregon, has scores of gilt edged cases from the northwest before tho supreme court. He charges for all of them, and does not act like Alexander H. Stephens, who used to try the cases of his constituents for nothing. Both Clay and Webster got good fees, for all they did, and a United States senator, once told me that Webster used to take fees for making speeches on one side or the other of the bills which came before the senate. He made lots of money but saved none, and was in debtali- tb? time he was in Washington. The fees at that time were nothing in comparison with this, and Ben Butler and George F. Edmunds make tens of thousands where the statesmen of the past made one. Hamilton made $10,000 a year on an average.it is said, and William Will-iam Wirt thought he 'was doing well when his yearly fees amounted to $6,000. Alexander Stephens got single fees of $20,000, and it is said that Aaron Burr made,$40.000 out of a single case. Eoscoe Conkling received a cash retainer of $50,000 for advocating the interests of i the Apollinaris Water company before Secretary Folger, and Benjamin H. Bris-tow Bris-tow received $5,000 for a short speech on the bill organizing the Bureau of Engraving En-graving and Printing some years ago. Frank G. Carpenter in Philadelphia Press. |