printers, who have me in chancery, so to speak, and from whom I cannot escape until it be their pleasure, even for a day. If this privilege shall be judged insufficient, then I must plead that I am also under the subpoena of another jurisdiction, to wit, the Georgia Bar Association, service of which was accepted long prior to the delivery of your writ, and I shall insist upon the right to pass through your jurisdiction unmolested, eundo et redeundo. May I also call your attention to the fact that the writ which you served upon me is in the nature of a subpoena duces tecum, and that it fails to describe with sufficient. certainty the paper or document which I am required to produce? Moreover, the time between the service of your writ and the date upon which it is required to be returned is so short as not to afford me a sufficient opportunity to search for and discover the said document, even if it were sufficiently described therein. If I am not in contempt for this disobedience, I shall make bold at some future term of your angust tribunal to attend as a mere looker-on or court idler, with the possible expectation of being picked up and made use of as a talesman, especially at your banquet. How I wish it could be this year! May I send greetings to those more fortunate than I, many of whom are personally known to me, and whose acquaintance I should be glad to renew. Yours obediently,

Hon. H. H. Ingersoll, Knoxville, Tenn.

SEYMOUR D. THOMPSON.

Other gentlemen were not so fertile of excuses as Judge T., and our sister States of Massachusetts and Kentucky are represented here in the persons of Mr. Butler and Colonel Hill, whom we shall have the pleasure of not only entertaining as our guests during this meeting, but of hearing speak upon topics of interest to the profession everywhere.

On the 22d of May last, at Washington, D. C., was held a convocation of delegates from various local Bar Associations for the purpose of organizing a National Bar Association, whose membership could be confined to delegates from the various States and local Bar Associations of the United States. As requested, I appointed from our membership a list of twenty-one delegates, of whom none attended, so far as I have heard. The result of the meeting was an organization of the

Association, with Hon. James O. Broadhead as President, and an adjournment to meet at Cleveland, Ohio, on the 8th inst., to which this Association is asked to send delegates. Our Secretary has a copy of this circular invitation, which will be read at the proper time, and I recommend a courteous response to the invitation. This movement seems to have revived and aroused the American Bar Association, and I have received from its Secretary an urgent request to remember the date of the meeting at Saratoga, and not to omit to send delegates to it. This delegation I assume will be appointed as usual, and I trust we may be worthily represented at both these meetings.

I take leave to suggest as a means of insuring the earlier publication of our annual proceedings that By-law VII.-4 be amended by adding: "And said Committee shall also contract for and supervise the publication of the report of the proceedings of the annual meetings of the Association, which shall be made promptly, and in no case delayed beyond Christmas next ensuing."

I congratulate the Association upon the fair degree of prosperity it now enjoys. To continue this action is necessary. The Association is invaluable as a means of maintaining an esprit de corps, as a stimulant to professional effort, a promoter of legal literature, and an invitation to fraternity and good fellowship. But these will not suffice for its growth, and prosperity, and permanence. It must do something to foster legal science, to maintain the honor and dignity of the profession, and to promote improvements in the law and modes of its administration. To these subjects I have earnestly tried to direct your attention, and I trust we shall not adjourn till we shall have made a record that will deserve and receive the confidence of the profession, and of all good citizens who love the State, who are proud of her name and history, and wish to see her laws upheld and improved, and those who minister at its altars worthy of the high vocation whereunto they have been called. Can our laws be bad and the lawyers without blame? Can they be badly administered and the lawyers faultless? Can this Association, the organic brain and mouth-piece of the Tennessee Bar, excuse itself for not using its powers-they are very great; for neglecting its opportunities-they are bound

less-to accomplish the objects of its existence? We owe it to our predecessors in the profession, whose professional standard in ante bellum days was higher than ours; we owe it to ourselves as citizens, as lawyers, as men; we owe it to posterity that we have no occasion to make excuse for such shortcoming. Let us acquit ourselves like men in the faithful and fearless discharge of sacred, civil, and professional duty. Let us do the right as we see the right, not for applause, but for the sake of the right. We shall then deserve praise whether we win it or not, and can rest in peace upon the sweetest reward vouchsafed to man the consciousness of duty well done.

ADDRESS.

JOHN HASKELL BUTLER, of Massachusetts.

Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Bar Association of Tennessee: When I received your kind invitation to make an address at your annual session I at first felt it would be my duty to decline. I well knew that the few weeks then remaining before your meeting would be filled with the engrossing office work which crowds upon the lawyer in the days which precede the annual pilgrimage of his clients and brethren of the profession to the sea-shore and the mountains. I anticipated that there would be a very brief opportunity for the collection of my ideas --if I had any stored away-upon any suitable topic. I was also embarrassed by the very high opinion which I had acquired for the lawyers of Tennessee by an acquaintance with some of your brothers whom I had met professionally and socially; and the idea that I could say any thing new or instructive or entertaining to a Bar composed of such men seemed utterly preposterous.

My good friend, your President, assured me, however, that you were all just as good fellows as himself, and that you would give me a right royal welcome, not for what I might do, but for myself; and at last his genial persuasions and, to some extent, I think, my own earnest desire to visit Tennessee, prevailed.

I ought here to say that if you, Mr. President, as a representative of the East Tennessee Bar, can, as I have no doubt you can, interpret the law as correctly as you have found the facts for me in this case, my friend from Memphis can safely entrust to your judicial judgment the security of all the boats and the freightage from St. Paul to the Delta.

I am glad to be here and to meet with you. This Association of yours, comprising lawyers from all sections of your

State, meeting in convention once a year, and devoting several days not only to social interviews and a more intimate acquaintance with each other, but to an interchange of views upon important questions of practice, legislation, and judicial procedure, must prove of inestimable value. I wish that the Bar of my own State might have a like Association. We have our County Bar Associations, but no such gatherings as this are ever held, nor even thought of. Our Suffolk Bar Association is a strong organization. We gather once a year in banquet assembled, where we eat much, tamper gently, as it were, with the cut glass, and then, when in the worst possible condition to consider practical questions, listen to the "leaders" in not too erudite speeches. You can readily perceive that, except for a brief hour or two in social enjoyment, the utility of such an Association is not great.

I ought not, however, to overlook two important features of our Association-the one is to form a valuable law library for the use of its members, the second to bring to summary justice members of the Bar who, by their conduct, have merited disbarment. This is an invaluable service, not only to the public, but to the Bar itself. The few who suffer directly by one dishonest lawyer's wickedness have a light load to bear compared with the effect upon the profession generally. When I reflect upon this result of one attorney's wrong-doing I am amazed that the honorable practitioners-and there are, I may say in passing, very few not honorable and upright-are not more ready and prompt to stamp out the thief and the shyster, who, under the protection of the honored robes they are permitted to wear, perpetrate their frauds upon the public. It is as important for you, gentlemen, here in Tennessee that we in Massachusetts should preserve our roll of attorneys unblemished as for our own people. We are no less interested than you that the Bar of Tennessee remain unsullied, because the intimate commercial relations existing between the people of our sister States necessarily bring their attendant litigation. You, upon whom your clients depend to select honest as well as able attorneys in Massachusetts, are responsible that you make a proper choice. A spotless Bar is a surer safeguard than the most carefully compiled legal directory or the most disinterested country postmaster.