Show A hint elint to lawyers the other day mr william allam mack maek speaker of tile tilo house rouse ouse in the legislature le 0 Is of 1871 while arguing a case before the mayor of terre hauteau sailed one of the parties a very respectable erectable spec spee table tabie and usually quiet man by t the ie name of townsend with more than usual virulence and when lie cooled off appreciated his misconduct fully enough to send an apolo gy to the man which was disregarded A few hours afterward he was attacked by the victim of his vituperation and terribly beaten the express takes this occurrence for the text of a timely and sensible lecture to lawyers on the practice of assailing sailing ts partie parties and sand witnesses with ill bred and impertinent abuse it touches an evil that nee needs as both caustic and cutting honorable men thorough lawyers those whose personal character make their bare statements as powerful with a jury as the oaths of others who degrade the profession never or rarely shame their manhood by such misconduct when they tiley feel forced to attack the character of f a witness or the tile acts of a party they do it with logic not with vituperation their assault is analysis not abuse and it hurts with a pain never approached by the tile blackguardism of those whom our lax system of f admission to the bar allows to stand upon the same level of privilege happily we have many such whom it would be invidious to name unless our memory could furnish a complete list but we have others who know little of law less of courtesy I 1 and nothing notha ing of that instinctive propriety which comes osgood of good breeding with these a resort to browbeating in the examination of witnesses is regarded as an indication of professional acuteness and they cant see that the they have done their duty unless they thoy thy ey have insulted some one subjected to their ignorant meddling A A witness with them is like a rat in a pit it a fair object of snapping worrying meanness an and the le more indignation dig nation their b brutality lity provokes the tile more successful they think they are with the gen gentlemen tenzen lenzen of tile the bar we have nothing to do in these suggestions their innate manliness raises them above the barbarity of torturing for the pleasure of seeing in pain but to the other otiler class the terre haute case should be a lesson the maltreatment of mr mack can not be excused or pallia palli 11 ted yet it is no more than he might have expected possibly did expect in a vague way when he sent an apology and it is no more than several lawyers of this cit city eity y have only their luck to thank that they have not encountered before this the privilege of the bar confers no privilege of unbridled defamation of insinuation of tal bullying but that privilege is assumed and courts have mischievously tolerated tol toi eratO atso it so long that it has hag come tobe to be regarded 1 asa ri right under which the best of men afie the purest of women may be treated in a way that woula would not be tolerated a moment out of a brothel and would sometimes he paid by a bullet or a stab in a brothel we have seen lawyers insult decent women in in a fashion that any husband or brother would be justified in retaliating with a thrashing that would keep the blackguard in bed for a month but tile the court permitted it at least did not rebuke it but a few months ago one of the most contemptible temp tible shysters shyster shy sat at our bar hiti mated to a lady witness that her character was not spotless and did it with no relevancy to the issue whatever the tile lady was so astounded at first that she sat silent and lazed dazed the question was repeated and then the witness half mad with mortification and ra rage e walked up to him with a closed asi isi fist and told him not to say that again it was a violent remedy but she had no other the court did not stop the wretch in his impertinent in calumny and tile tiie witness did it for herself the question was not repeated recently a new york lawyer 30 so tortured a respectable pec table woman with dirty insinuations that an old gray headed juror rose up and demanded the interference of the court the judge laughed at him one of the most estimable men in that city was similarly mistreated by a dirty lawyer and in the utter absence of protection from the court lie he warned tile the scoundrel that there was an outside to the tile court house and lie he would nind find protection there these are not frequent occurrences to be sure but they are common enough to make a summons as a witness a horror to any decent woman in the land there is not a respectable man in indianapolis who would nt gladly pay fifty dollars rather than have his wife or his daughter subjected to the chances of insult in some of our courts especially the justl justi justices cel courts does any one need to be told that these abuses these haras sings of witnesses these denunciations of parties are obstructions to justice of the duties of the bar and that the court which tolerates them is but littleness litt little leless less guilty than those wh perpetrate them good judges do not permit them or promptly repress them but there are plenty of judges in the state and all over the tile country who are neither good on the tile bench nor good at the bar and are only good for nothing no sense of propriety of personal degradation will ever restrain such conduct simply because it is never practised practiced by those who have any such sense the example le of the eminent members of the gar bar is idle because these those ghys have no more appreciation of the real power and excellence of their profession than a thief of scrap serap iron imon iron has of the tile value ing mill the right remedy would be their exclusion from fron the bar but as that is impossible under the state constitution there appears to b be none but that personal cespon appeals with considerable rabi force to men cowardly enough to use their professional position to insult a woman if j judges would apply their power to cases of gross inis misconduct conduct not such as involve some questionable excess of brivil eg esthey would do much to improve the tile tone of judicial proceed ings and make a summons to court something ng not quite so terrifying 0 to decent women and quiet men as a sentence tomail to jail jall and it is little less bonow so now etisa it is a noted feature in the practice irae irac tice of nearly every lawyer of distinction lis ils that lie ho is courteous to witnesses sparing of severity to opposing parties and never treats persons in in court otherwise than he would treat them out of it unless under strong suspicion of falsehood or wanton provocation and this is the tile kind of practice that tells with a jury jurs j ry it is the best mark of a fl arst g t r rate to lawyer and a stra stranger nger to a bar who is however familiar with courts will pick out the leading members with almost unfailing ng accuracy by their considerate treatment of witnesses and their abstinence from personalities directed against aidt other opposing counsel or barties yar lar rt ties this notorious us fact ought 0 o stimulate the cultivation of courtesy as an et effective active trick of the sion slon but shysters shy are too ar below the reach of appeals to lono iono rable rabie motives and creditable amples examples ampies to be affected indian apolis journal |