STAGE LAWYERS.

Reader, constant or inconstant reader, have you ever noticed how the lawyers are maligned and maltreated by the dramatists. As a rule, one never sees a honest lawyer on the stage. Indeed, the part would be so novel that an actor would require to be paid extra for performing it. We should as soon expect a dramatist to write a part for a Gorilla as introduce so strange an animal as a honest lawyer. No. A lawyer on the stage is invariably a bad one. In Comedy he is the evil genius of the piece, and though he triumphs for an act or two, before the curtain falls he always gets the worst of it. In Melodrama he is, id not the villain of the piece, at least the villain’s bosom friend and il-legal adviser. In a Nautical drama he is always found consorting with the smugglers and the pirates. The Jack Tars call him “land-shark,” and threaten to harpoon him or to “darken the skylights.” They nickname him a “lubber,” and bid him “sheep off, or they’ll scuttle him.” They shiver their timbers when he heaves in sight, and swear they’ll make lobscouse of him if he comes athwart their hawse.

In Farce, too, you may be sure, a lawyer’s never introduced excepting to be laughed at. His make up is always the signal for a roar. His lean lanthorn-jaws are as yellow as old parchment, and he dresses in a seedy shiny swallow-tailed black coat, buttoned tight across his chest to make him look like a starved scarecrow. His spindleshanks of legs are made to look still thinner by being cased in tights; and his hands are enveloped in a mass of woollen fabric, which appears to be supposed to do duty for gloves.

Then, the treatment he receives is of as bad a fashion nearly as his dress. He rarely comes upon the stage excepting to be kicked off it. Like the dog upon the racecourse, everybody hoots at him. In fact, the part which lawyers have to play upon the stage, is to get the kicks and cuffs but not the six-and-eightpences. Like Pantaloons in pantomimes, they get knocked about and jeered at, and are continually touched up with the red end of the hot poker.

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