It is not merely that there are no solicitors, as such, in the United States, for it might well be that the general practising lawyers who fill their places, so far as their places have to be filled, might be just as serious an incubus on business as solicitordom is on the business of London to-day. Names are immaterial. The essential fact is that the spirit and the conditions which make solicitors a necessity in England do not exist in America. I do not propose to go into any comparison in the differences in legal procedure in the two countries; not being a lawyer, I should undoubtedly make blunders if I did. What is important is that a man who is accustomed to walking alone does not think of turning to his legal adviser at every step. Great corporations and large business concerns have of course their counsel, their attorneys, and even their "general solicitors." But the ordinary American engaged in trade or business in a small or moderate way gets along from year's end to year's end, perhaps for his lifetime, without legal services. I am speaking only on conjecture when I say that, taking the country as a whole, outside of the large corporations or among rich men, over ninety per cent. of the legal documents--leases, agreements, contracts, articles of partnership, articles of incorporation, bills of sale, and deeds of transfer--are executed by the individuals concerned without reference to a lawyer. Probably not less than three fourths of the actual transactions in the purchase of land, houses, businesses, or other property are similarly concluded without assistance. "What do we need of a lawyer?" one man will ask the other and the other will immediately agree that they need one not at all. Of course troubles often arise which would have been prevented had the documents been drawn up by a competent hand. The constitutional reluctance to go to a lawyer is sometimes carried to lengths that are absurd. But I do not believe that the amount of litigation which arises from that cause is in any way comparable to that which is avoided by the mere fact that legal aid is outside the mental horizon. The men who conduct most of the affairs of life directly without legal help are most likely to adjust differences when they arise in the same way. That is a matter of opinion, however, based only on reasonable analogy, which I can advance no figures to support; but what is not matter of opinion, but matter of certainty, is, first, that the general gain in the rapidity of business movement is incalculable, and, second, that business as a whole is relieved of the vast burden of solicitors' charges.