or this crippled boy? What was the use of practising law if we could
not get a verdict on evidence that would convince a blind man? Settle
it? Never!

So they went to our client and persuaded the boy to give up.

"Big Steve," attorney for the tramway company! The gas company's
officers in court! The business men insulting the judge in his Club!
The defendant's brother at the head of one of the smelter companies! I
began to "connect up" "the Cat."

Gardener and I held a council of war. If it was possible for these men
to "hang" juries whenever they chose, there was need of a law to make
something less than a unanimous decision by a jury sufficient to give a
verdict in civil cases. Colorado needed a "three-fourths jury law."
Gardener was a popular young man, a good "mixer," a member of several
fraternal orders, a hail-fellow-well-met, and as interested as I was in
politics. He had been in the insurance business before he took up law,
and he had friends everywhere. Why should he not go into politics?--as
he had often spoken of doing.

In the intervals of the Smith suit, we had had a case in which a
mother, whose child had been killed by a street car, had been unable to
recover damages from the tramway company, because the company claimed,
under the law, that her child was worthless alive or dead; and there
was need of a statute permitting such as she to recover damages for
distress and anguish of mind. We had had another case in which a young
factory worker had been injured by the bursting of an emery wheel; and
the law held that the boy was guilty of "contributory negligence"
because he had continued to work at the wheel after he had found a flaw
in it--although he had had no choice except to work at it or leave the
factory and find employment elsewhere. There was need of a law giving
workmen better protection in such circumstances. Why should not
Gardener enter the Legislature and introduce these bills?--which I was
eager to draft. Why not, indeed! The state needed them; the people
wanted them; the courts were crippled and justice was balked because of
the lack of them. Here was an opportunity for worthy ambition to serve
the community and help his fellow-man.

That night, with all the high hopes and generous ideals and merciful
ignorance of youth, we decided--without knowing what we were about--to
go into the jungle and attack the Beast!

THE CAT PURRS

Denver was then, as it is now, a beautifu