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|The Green Bag.|}}

AN ENGLISH VIEW OF THE AMERICAN BAR. FIFTY years ago, De Tocqueville, writ ing upon the phenomena of American democracy, delivered the following opinion of American lawyers, — an opinion which sounds almost startling even to an English reader, who knows how great is the social eminence of the bar in his own country. "If I were asked," says the French philoso pher, "where I place the American aristoc racy, I should reply, without hesitation, that it is not composed of the rich, who are united together by no common tie, but that it occupies the judicial bench and bar." This appears even more strange when we recollect the comical anecdotes which from time to time crop up in English journals (more especially in the "silly" season), and which are evidently derived from American papers, of advocates, in spite of the remon strances of the judge, fighting in court and rolling over each other and their briefs for a short while, when order is restored and the case proceeds; or of judges sitting and " whittling " sticks while they listen to the speeches of the opposing advocates. But the truth is that not only have times changed since De Tocqueville wrote, but that stories of this description are easily explicable when the extraordinary power of "romancing" which the Yankee reporter possesses is considered, and when, also, we recollect what an utter absence of respect there is in the United States for forms and ceremonies apart from common-sense and justice. It must be remembered, too, that there are thirty-eight States (1883) of the Union, some of which display a civilization which is in advance of our own, while others are barely freed from the control of Judge Lynch. It is our aim in the present paper to try to present a consistent and concise account of the character, acquirement, and social position of the legal profession in the United States of America. Our readers are doubtless aware that each

State of the Union has its own independent courts of justice. Over them all is the Su preme Court of the United States, of which there are seven judges, which sits at Wash ington, and decides all questions which concern the intercourse of the Union with other nations, and all disputes between one State and another or between an individual and a State. All questions about its own jurisdiction are decided by this court with out any appeal. Some idea of the impor tance of this tribunal can, perhaps, be gathered from the fact that a casual spec tator may hear called the case of " The State of New York v. The State of Penn sylvania," especially when it is recollected that either of these States is about as big a place as the whole of England. To the judges of this court, also, a most tremen dous power is given. They have the right to decree that any bill which has passed the two national chambers of Congress and the Senate is void, as being contrary to the letter and spirit of the Articles of Union and the Constitution. The importance, there fore, of the judges of the Supreme Court is something before which that of Lord Selborne on the woolsack, or of Lord Cole ridge in " all his glory," sinks into the merest insignificance. It need scarcely be remarked that the extra-judicial utterances of judges who are armed with this power, possess the utmost political importance, and create a far greater stir than that recently made by the judgment of the Lord ChiefJustice upon the recent case of Mainte nance. Perhaps we may venture to remark that the vexed Bradlaugh question would have speedily been decided sn America, without the necessity for the rummaging up of forgotten statutes and for unseemly liti gation between Mr. Bradlaugh, the Speaker, Mr. Newdegate, and the Sergeant-atArms, and the rest of the parties to the squabble.