ther property are similarly concluded without assistance. "What do we
need of a lawyer?" one man will ask the other and the other will
immediately agree that they need one not at all.

Of course troubles often arise which would have been prevented had the
documents been drawn up by a competent hand. The constitutional
reluctance to go to a lawyer is sometimes carried to lengths that are
absurd. But I do not believe that the amount of litigation which arises
from that cause is in any way comparable to that which is avoided by the
mere fact that legal aid is outside the mental horizon. The men who
conduct most of the affairs of life directly without legal help are most
likely to adjust differences when they arise in the same way. That is a
matter of opinion, however, based only on reasonable analogy, which I
can advance no figures to support; but what is not matter of opinion,
but matter of certainty, is, first, that the general gain in the
rapidity of business movement is incalculable, and, second, that
business as a whole is relieved of the vast burden of solicitors'
charges.

The American, accustomed to the ways of his own people, on becoming
engaged in business in London is astounded, first, at the disposition of
the Englishman to turn for legal guidance in almost every step he takes,
second, at the stupendous sums of money which are paid for services
which in his opinion are entirely superfluous, and, finally, at the
terrible loss of time incurred in the conclusion of any transaction by
the waiting for the drafting and redrafting and amending and engrossing
and recording of interminable documents which are a bewilderment and an
annoyance to him.

The Englishman often says that American business methods are slip-shod;
and possibly that is the right word. But Englishmen should not for a
moment deceive themselves into thinking that the American envies the
Englishman the superior niceties of his ways or would think himself or
his condition likely to be improved by an exchange. An example of
difference in the practice of the two countries which has so often been
used as to be fairly hackneyed (and therefore perhaps stands the better
chance of carrying conviction than a more original, if better,
illustration) is drawn from the theory which governs the building of
locomotive engines in the two countries.

The American usually builds his engine to do a certain specified service
and to last a reasonable length of time. Du