When I arrived at Lancaster I entered the office of John D. Martin, an eminent lawyer of that place, in pursuance of a previous correspondence with him. He had been a particular friend of my father and an assistant to him in his school during my father's residence in Lancaster in 1842-3. He already had his nephew, Charles Martin, as an assistant in his office and could not offer me any compensation or any work. After two months I found it necessary to do something to replenish my exhausted finances. I first took a select school in Millersport a small town on the canal a few miles north of New Baltimore. After teaching here for three months I took the winter school in New Baltimore at a salary of $30 a month. In the meantime, through the acquaintances of my brother Joseph, located at New Salem, and my brother John, located at New Baltimore, I became known throughout that part of the country as an embryo lawyer. Although not admitted regularly to the practice of law, in the courts of record, I had the right to practice before the justices of the peace of the county, and during that summer I tried some seventeen cases before these inferior courts. I still continued my studies of the law, using very frequently a book known there as _Swan's Treatise_, compiled for the benefit of the justices of the peace of the state by Judge Swan, of Ohio. This book also contained many references to the supreme court decisions of the state, and I was accustomed after school hours to walk to Lancaster and borrow these reports from my friend, Mr. Martin, frequently taking them home and using them upon the trial of my cases, which always occurred on Saturdays when I had no school. During my stay in Ohio, I read carefully and with much profit to myself, the daily reports of the proceedings of the state convention that was then forming a new constitution for that state. Many eminent lawyers were members of the convention, among them Mr. Stansbury, afterwards Attorney General of the United States, and Mr. Raney, afterwards Judge of the supreme court of the state of Ohio. Occasionally the learned men of the convention indulged their sense of humor, and among other incidents of the debates I recall the following: Among other members of the convention there was an uneducated man by the name of Sawyer. Mr. Stansbury, of the committee on the judiciary, reported a provision relating to the powers of certain courts, authorizing them to issue writ of habeas corpus, procedendo, quo warranto, and mandamus. Mr. Sawyer objected to these Latin terms being in the constitution on the ground that many of his constituents could not understand the meaning of such terms and he wanted the committee to put the words into English language, and also asked for an explanation of the meaning of these words.