"This would bring on an action for assault and battery. The free comments of the neighbors on the fracas or the character of the parties would be productive of slander suits. A man would for his convenience lay down an irascible neighbor's fence, and indolently forget to put it up again, and an action of trespass would grow out of it. The suit would lead to a free fight, and sometimes furnish the bloody incidents for a murder trial. Occupied with this class of business, the half-legal, half-political lawyers were never found plodding in their offices. In that case they would have waited long for the recognition of their talents or a demand for their services. Out of this characteristic of the times also grew the street discussions I have adverted to. There was scarcely a day or hour when a knot of men might not have been seen near the door of some prominent store, or about the steps of the court-house eagerly discussing a current political topic--not as a question of news, for news was not then received quickly or frequently, as it is now, but rather for the sake of debate; and the men from the country, the pioneers and farmers, always gathered eagerly about these groups and listened with open-mouthed interest, and frequently manifested their approval or dissent in strong words, and carried away to their neighborhoods a report of the debaters' wit and skill. It was in these street talks that the rising and aspiring young lawyer found his daily and hourly forum. Often by good luck or prudence he had the field entirely to himself, and so escaped the dangers and discouragements of a decisive conflict with a trained antagonist." [Illustration: LINCOLN'S BOOKCASE AND INKSTAND. ]