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'Repeal this statute, my good sir?' says Mr Kenge, to a smarting
client, 'repeal it, my dear sir? Never, with my consent. Alter this
law, sir, and what will be the effect of your rash proceeding on a
class of practitioners very worthily represented, allow me to say to
you, by the opposite attorney in the case, Mr Vholes? Sir, that class
of practitioners would be swept from the face of the earth. Now you
cannot afford - I will say, the social system cannot afford - to lose
an order of men like Mr Vholes. Diligent, perservering, steady, acute
in business. My dear sir, I understand your present feelings against
the existing state of things, which I grant to be a little hard in your
case; but I can never raise my voice for the demolition of a class of
men like Mr Vholes'. The respectability of Mr Vholes has even been
cited with crushing effect before Parliamentary committees, as in
the following blue minutes of a distinguished attorney's evidence.
'Question (number five hundred and seventeen thousand eight hundred
and sixty-nine). If I understand you, these forms of practice in
disputably occasion delay? Answer. Yes, some delay. Question. And
great expense? Answer. Most assuredly they cannot be gone through
for nothing. Question. And unspeakable vexation? Answer. I am not
prepared to say that. They have never given me any vexation; quite
the contrary. Question. But you think that their abolition would damage
a class of practitioners? Answer. I have no doubt of it. Question.
Can you instance any type of that class? Answer. Yes. I would un
hesitatingly mention Mr Vholes. He would be ruined. Question. Mr
Vholes is considered, in the profession, a respectable man? Answer.
