After I was admitted to the bar I felt the natural elation of one who had reached the end of a long journey after weary waiting. I spent two or three weeks in visiting my relatives in Dayton and Cincinnati, attending the courts in those cities, where I observed closely the conduct of judges and lawyers in the trial of cases, and returned to Mansfield full of confidence, and with a better opinion of myself than I have entertained since. The first object I sought to accomplish was the removal of my mother and her two unmarried daughters, Susan and Fannie, from Lancaster to Mansfield. At this time all her sons were settled at homes distant from Lancaster, and her other daughters were married and scattered. By an arrangement between my brothers, Charles and Tecumseh, and myself, I was to keep house with mother in charge, Susan and Fannie as guests. This family arrangement was continued until Susan and I were married and mother died. To return to my admission to the bar. I felt that I was now a man. I had heretofore banked mainly on the treasures of hope. My brother, Charles Sherman, admitted me as an equal partner in his lucrative practice, and thus I gained a foot-hold in the profession. Fortunately for me, his timidity required me to attend stoutly contested cases brought to us. The old distinction between law and equity proceedings was then preserved, and Charles was a very good equity counselor. With this line of distinction between us we never had any difficulty in arranging our business, or in dividing our labor. He was then agent and attorney for New York and eastern creditors, the confidential adviser of our leading business men, and the counselor of a very interesting sect, then quite numerous in Richland county, called Quakers, or Friends, who could not conscientiously take the usual oath, but in witnessing all necessary legal papers, and in contests, made their affirmations. There was, therefore, left to me the pleadings, oral or written, and the struggle of debate and trial. The practice of the bar in Ohio had greatly changed from that of the early decades of this century. As I have stated, the judges, in the earlier decades, accompanied by leading lawyers, mounted on horses, went from county to county and disposed of the docket. The local lawyers had but little to do. Now all this is changed. Each county has its bar and its leading lawyers, and only when the case is of great importance a "foreign" lawyer is called in. The change has been caused by the abnormal growth of population. In 1830 the total population of the state was only 938,000, that of many of the counties being very small. In 1850 the population had more than doubled, amounting to 1,980,000. In 1890 it was 3,672,000, well distributed among the counties according to their capacity for supporting this increase.