190
AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION
ing more distructive than unjust and illfouncled abuse and jealousy of them- As regards the lawyers who you say in your letter are causing all the disturbance in the country, I believe they are an evil and a great one but they are patronized and encouraged and paid, by the people. A distiller of ardent spirit throws into the world a drug that entails disgrace and ruin and misery on thousands of innocent and helpless women o.nd children, and sinks many a worthy man from the highest to the most infamous grade of society- Is the distiller, or are those who support him most to blamei- The truth is that the evil lays in the people [themselves] It is a part of the national character of Americ~ns to be contentious and litigious, and I do believe that a lawyer would fatten on 100 Ameri- cans, when he wo'uld starve on 10,000 of any other people on earth. If you wish to correct this evil therefore go to the foundation and cut it up by the roots. Let every man settle his differences by an arbitration of his neighbors, or if he goes to law let him attend to his own business and not employ a lawyer. I know of no other way of correcting the evil for if the Alcalde was to silence all the lawyers and suffer none to appear before him, the PEOPLE would immediately cry out despotism and oppression and say it was a hard case that a man could not employ an agent to attend to his business for him, and a talking lawyer would go about bawling oppression, that he was not allowed to exercise his profession and that the Alcalde had taken his bread from him and his poor family (if he had one) etc. etc. ~.:\..nd the people would no doubt take sides with the lawyer and curse the Alcalde much more for silencing the lawyers than they now do for not silencing them- An honest and conscientious lawyer is a valuable member of society- there is none more so, but a hot headed fractious [abusi]ng and contentious lawyer is a curse on any com- munity, and ought to be discountenanced but I really cannot see any other effectual remidy than the one I have pointed out to correct this evil- it must be corrected by settling disputes by means of arbi- tration in each neighborhood, and by never employing a lawyer in any case- As regards the prejudice that appears to exist against this place, I must say that it is both unjust and impolitic- There has been much contention here it is true, but who caused it i . Drunkards and vagabonds and unprincipled men, known and acknowledged to be such by every body-make a difficulty and the people abuse the Alcalde and the place for suffering so much disorder The Alcalde attempts to correct the evil by calling these outrageous men to an account, and executing the law on them and the PEOPLE take sides with the vagabonds and abuse the Alcalde and the good part of the citizens here because they had attempted to controul the bad ones-
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