store, and if you deal with a second-rate bank you may find to your sorrow some day that it has ceased to honor your checks. However this may be with the store and bank, there is not a question whatever but what in the case of a lawyer it pays in every sense of the term to have a first-rate lawyer. The client in the lawyer's hands is almost as helpless as a client in the dentist's chair; with perhaps the difference that with his tooth troubles he is entirely ignorant as to the cause and as to the method of cure, whereas with his legal matters he often deceives himself into thinking that he knows more about them than he really does. Of course he knows or ought to know something of the facts of his case, but what he usually does not know is the facts of his opponent's case (which he often overlooks or underestimates) and the difficulties and perplexities of litigation. What the ordinary client needs when he consults a lawyer is ordinarily, not the clever advocate, because in 3 cases out of 4 his case will never get to court, nor the shrewd and ingenious student of the law, but primarily what he needs is the lawyer of high character and sound judgment and experience who can advise him what is the best course for him to adopt. Take for example the common case of a client who has received a personal injury. He can usually have little or no opinion of value as to the responsibility of the person who caused the injury, and of course his judgment as to the verdict that he may obtain if successful is obviously of no value whatever. It is probably a safe statement that half of such cases are settled out of court, and in every one of such cases a client may have received substantially less than he would have received had he been more skillfully represented, and yet he of course has no knowledge himself of what he has lost. He has lost simply because he has consulted a lawyer who has not either the requisite skill or the requisite experience to advise him wisely as to his position. It would seem indeed to be a general principle applicable to doctors, dentists, lawyers and professional men generally, that if you have a case which is necessary to take to them at all, the best man you can get for the job is the cheapest-only remembering that in the case of a lawyer (much

more than in either the case of the doctor or the dentist) the character element is the first and most important consideration.

If it would not unduly extend these remarks, it would be easy to pursue the same thought into the field of the judiciary. The writer is one of those who believes that the system of judicial election by the people is unwise; that in the very nature of things the people are not qualified to decide who should serve on the bench, and that decision should be made by the highest executive authority, to wit, the governor of the state. This principle is in force in the federal courts and on the whole with distinctly desirable results. So long, however, as people have a vote in the choice of judges, it is much to be desired that they really interest themselves in the subject; that they should not look upon the election of a judge as a matter which does not concern them. As a matter of fact, it is questionable whether any other office as vitally touches the community as the office of judge, who by his decision may affect the life, liberty or property of any or all of the citizens of the community. In the nature of things, the layman cannot have an expert opinion as to the legal qualifications of the candidate for judge, but he can and should see to it that no man is elected judge who has not a sturdy character and the requisite experience. It is certain that if the laymen of the community would interest themselves actively in the selection of judges to the extent above indicated, there would be less complaint of having judges named by politicians placed upon the bench without any public interest and often to the detriment of the public.

The writer closes these remarks with the expression of the hope that this little look into the inside of a lawyer's life may be of some practical value to the audience.

INFLUENCE OF THE STUDY OF ANIMAL DISEASES

UPON THE PUBLIC WELFARE

BY LOUIS A. KLEIN

Professor of Veterinary Pharmacology and Hygiene

The average city dweller is very likely to look upon disease in animals as something which concerns only the animals themselves and their owners. Although this is, perhaps, a very natural conclusion under the circumstances, it is, at the same time, a very superficial view of the matter.

In the first place, every individual in a nation is affected by the condition of its agriculture. Good crops bring general prosperity. Good crops depend upon soil fertility. In order to keep up the fertility each farm must maintain its quota of livestock, and if this is to be done profitably, and it can be done in no other way, the animals must be protected from disease. Secondly, disease among meat and milk-producing animals causes losses which in the end must be borne by the consumers of their products. Beef cattle, hogs and sheep cannot be sold to the butcher for less than it costs to produce them and losses from disease must be counted in with other expenses. The butcher must sell the meat and other products at a profit and if an animal is condemned as unsuitable for food on account of disease the cost of that animal must be charged up with the other expenses. And finally, in another and perhaps more important respect, animal diseases, or some of them at least, may touch the life of almost any individual. A number of these diseases are transmissible to mankind, some of them being of a very virulent and fatal character, and consequently any work which leads to their control or suppression is of assistance in protecting the health of mankind. This brief and general survey of the subject is probably sufficient to show that the study of the diseases of our domestic animals is not only of service to owners of live-stock but extends its influence into every class of

society. If we consider briefly some of the work which has been accomplished, this fact will be brought out more clearly.

Perhaps no investigation has yielded results of greater value than the study of the disease of cattle known as Texas fever. This malady, because of the peculiar manner in which the infection is transmitted, had for years been a mystery and a cause of great anxiety to cattle owners in certain parts of the country. Cattle shipped by rail or driven overland from the southern portion of the United States to the more northerly sections never failed to leave a trail of diseased and dying animals in their wake, except in the colder seasons of the year. Close proximity or actual contact was not necessary. Cattle which had not been near the southern cattle but which had merely crossed their trail or used the same pastures, in some instances weeks after the passage of the southern cattle, took the disease and died. Cattle from the northern districts became infected when placed in stockyard pens or shipped in railroad cars which had been occupied by cattle from the south. Farmers could not go to public stockyards to buy stock cattle or thin cattle to fatten without frequently having them sicken and die after they got them home. To add to the mystery, the cattle which spread the disease were apparently healthy, while those which were actually sick did not give the disease to others. When these facts were related to persons who had not observed the conditions they were received with incredulity and were jeeringly spoken of as "a romance in pathology." The conditions were so radically different from those associated with other diseases that it is not surprising that the reports concerning the diseases were questioned. While the cattle owners in the east suffered losses from the disease as well as those in the west, it was in the southwest where the greatest damage occurred. The great herds driven up from lower Texas and the Indian Territory to the railroad shipping points in southern Kansas caused enormous losses among cattle coming over the same trails from the Panhandle of Texas, the upper part of Oklahoma and southern Kansas. Herd owners in northern Oklahoma and lower Kansas had such a dread of the southern cattle that they sometimes