University of Virginia Library

27. EXAMINING A CANDIDATE FOR
LICENSE.

Some time in the year of Grace, 1837 or 8, during the session
of the Circuit Court of N * * * * * * Mississippi, Mr.
Thomas Jefferson Knowly made known to his honor, his
(K.'s) respectful desire to be turned into a lawyer. Such requests,
at that time, were granted pretty much as a matter of
course. Practising law, like shinplaster banking or a fight,
was pretty much a free thing; but the statute required a certain
formula to be gone through, which was an examination
of the candidate by the Court, or under its direction. The
Judge appointed Henry G * * * and myself to put him
through, a task we undertook with much pleasure. Jefferson,
or Jeff, as he was called for short, had been lounging
about the court-house for some time, refreshing his mind with
such information as he could thus pick up on the trial of cases,
and from the discussions of the bar in reference to the laws
of his country. Having failed in the drygoods line at the
cross-roads, he was left at leisure to pursue some other calling

without being disturbed by any attention to his bill-book.
He had taken up a favorable opinion of the law from the
glimpses he had got of its physiognomy; and, having borrowed
an old copy of Blackstone, went to work to master its
contents as well as he could. He had reached about thirty-five
years when this hallucination struck him. He was a
stout, heavy fellow—with a head that Spurzheim might have
envied: though the contents thereof did not give any new
proof of Spurzheim's theory. He was not encumbered with
any learning. He had all the apartments of his memory unfilled
and waiting to be stored with law. An owl-like gravity
sat on him with a solemnity like the picture of sorrowing
affection on a tombstone. He was just such a man as passes
for a wonderful judge of law among the rustics—who usually
mistake the silent blank of stupidity for the gravity of wisdom.

We took Jefferson with us, in the recess of court, over to
a place of departed spirits,—don't start, reader! we mean,
an evacuated doggery, grocery or juicery, as, in the elegant
nomenclature of the natives, it was variously called; the former
occupant having suddenly decamped just before court,
by reason of some apprehensions of being held responsible
for practising his profession without license.

Having taken our seats, the examiners on the counter,
and the examinee on an empty whiskey barrel, the examination
began. My learned associate having been better
grounded in the elemental learning of the books, into which
his research was, as old H. used to say, “specially sarching,”

and being, besides, the State's attorney, was entitled to precedence
in the examination; a claim I was very willing to
allow. After some general questions, G. asked:

“Mr. Knowly, what is a chose in action?”

Knowly.—A chosen action? eh?—yes—exactly—just so
—a chosen action? Why, a chosen action is—whare a man's
got a right to fetch two or three actions, and he chuses one
of 'em which he will fetch—the one that's chuse is the—chosen
action: that's easy, squire.

G.—Well, what is a chose in possession?

K.—A chosen possession? A chosen possession—(G.—
Don't repeat the question—answer it, if you please. K.—
Well—I won't—)

K.—A chosen possession?—Yes—exactly—jess so—
ahem—(here K. looked about for a stick, picked one up and
began whittling with a knife—then muttering absently)—“A
chosen possession? Why, squire, if a man has two possessions
to be chose, which he is to chuse as a guardeen which
the estate have not been divided, and they come to a divide
of it in lots which the commissioners has set aside and prized,
and he chooses one of them possessions, which one he chooses,
that is the chosen possession. That aint hard nuther.

G.—Mr. K. how many fees are there?

K.—How many fees?—why squire, several: doctor's fees,
lawyer's fees, sheriff's fees, jailer's fees, clerk's fees, both
courts, and most every body else's.

G.—What is the difference between a fee simple and a
contingent fee?

K.—The difference between a fee—(here G. told him
not to repeat the question, K. promised he wouldn't, and resumed).

The difference between—yes—exactly—jess so. Why,
squire—a simple fee is where a client gives his lawyer so
much any how, let it go how it will; and a contingent fee is
where he takes it on the sheeres, and no cure no pay.

G.—What are the marital rights of a husband at common
law?

K.—The martal rites?—(smiling)—concerning of what,
squire?

G.—Her property?

K.—Oh—that—why—yes—jess so—why, squire, he gets
her track,—i. e., if he can without committing a trespass—
what's hers is his, and what's his is his own. Squire, I know'd
that before ever I opened a law-book.

G.—Is the wife entitled to dower in the husband's lands
if she survives him?

K.—O—yes, squire—in course—I've seen that tried in
Alabama; that is, squire, you understand if the estate is solvent
to pay the debts.

G.—Suppose the husband's estate is insolvent—what
then?

K.—Why, then, in course not.

G.—Why not?

K.—Why not?—why, squire, it stands to reason: for
then, you see, the husband might gather a whole heap of land,
and then jest fraudently die to give his wife dower rights to

his land. I jest know plenty of men about here mean enough
to do it, and jump at the chance.

G.—Has a man a natural right to dispose of his property
by will?

K.—Why, now, squire, concerning of that—my mind aint
so clare as on tother pints—it strikes me sort a vague—
something about a cow laying or that should have laid down
in a place which she had a right, and another cow-beast, nor
airy another havin' no rights to disturb her:—aint that it,
squire?

G.—Suppose, Mr. K., a tenant for life, should hold over
after the termination of his estate, what kind of action would
you bring against him?

K.—Tenant for life—hold—termination of the state?—
ugh—um—jess so—Squire, aint that mortmain—the statue
of mortmain—in Richard the 8th's time?—Blackstone says
something about that.

G.—Mr. K., if a man wants to keep his property in his
family, how far can he make it descend to his children and
grand-children, &c.

K.—Why as to that—something, squire, about all the candles
burning—but, squire, I never could understand what
burning candles had to do with it.

G.—What is an estate tail female, contingent on the
happening of a past event, limited by contingent devise to
the children of grantees after possibility of issue extinct,
considered with reference to the statute De Donis?

K.—Squire, the Devil himself couldn't answer that, and

I guess he's as smart as airy other lawyer—but I reckon it
is—

G.—Well, Mr. K., what is the distinction between Law
and Equity?

K.—Why, squire, Law is as it happens—'cordin' to
proof and the way the juror goes; Eekity is jestis—and a
man may git a devilish sight of law, and git devilish little
jestis.

G.—Does Equity ever interfere with Law?

K.—Not that ever I seed, squire.

G.—Whose son is a bastard considered in law?

K.—Why, squire, that's further than I've got—I've
ginerally seed that it was laid to the young man in the settle
ment best able to pay over its maintainance; and, I suppose,
it would be his son-in-law.

G.—What is a libel?

K.—Why, squire, if a man gits another in a room, and
locks the door on him, and makes him sign a paper certifying
he's told a lie on him, the paper is a lie-bill.

G.—What is the difference between Trespass and Case?

K.—Why, squire, Trespass ar when a man trespasses
on another. Now, squire, your putting so many hard questions
to me, that is a trespass.

G.—Yes; and if the fellow can't answer a single one, I
should say he was a Case.

Here the examination closed. Jefferson walked slowly
out of the grocery, and, after getting about thirty yards off
on the green, beckoned me to him.

As I came towards him, he drew himself up with some
dignity, took aim at a chip, about fifteen feet off, and squirted
a stream of tobacco juice at it with remarkable precision.
Said he, slowly and with marked gravity, “B—, you
needn't make any report of this thing to the Judge. I believe
I won't go in. I don't know as it's any harder than I
took it at the fust—but, then, B—, ther's, so, d—d, much,
more, of, it.”