August, 1889, at Chicago: "_So far as I am aware, there is no other country calling itself civilized where it takes so long to punish a criminal, and so many years to get a final decision between man and man. Truly we may say, that Justice passes through the land on leaden sandals. One of our most trustworthy journalists asserts that more murderers are hung by mobs every year than are executed in course of law. And yet we have, it is computed, nearly 70,000 lawyers in the country. The proportion of the legal element is, in France, 1:4762; in Germany, 1:6423; in the United States, 1:909. Now turn from the performers to the performance. It appears that the average length of a lawsuit varies very much in the different States; the greatest being about 6 years, and the least 1-1/2. Very few States finish a litigation in this shorter period. Taking all these figures together, is it any wonder that a cynic should say that we American lawyers talk more and speed less than any other equal number of men known to history?_" Mr. Field then repeated his well-known argument for Codification, ascribing the law's delays to the chaotic condition of the law, and maintaining that it is the first duty of a government to bring the laws to the knowledge of the People. "_You must, of course, be true to your clients and the courts, but you must also give speedy justice to your fellow-citizens, more speedy than you have yet given, and you must give them a chance to know their laws._" Owing to the immense difficulties in the way of any one person mastering the various branches of the law in this country, it is falling more and more into specialties, and lawyers are devoting themselves to some one of its many branches, the main division line being between "Law" and "Equity" technically so-called; and whenever one becomes eminent along any line, his compensation is apt to be very large owing at once to a large Demand and to a small Supply at that point, while the average compensation of the lawyers as a whole class is meagre enough, because there are too many of them, and the people have become very suspicious of the law's meshes and delays.