lly liberal attainments. Under the direction of an acute and honest
judge, as most of our true judges actually are, the Court of Errors
would hardly form such a jury as would allow a creditable person to be
tried by his peers, in a case affecting character, for instance, and
here we have it set up as a court of the last resort, to settle points
of law!"

"I see it has just made a decision in a libel suit, at which the
profession sneers."

"It has, indeed. Now look at that very decision, for instance, as the
measure of its knowledge. An editor of a newspaper holds up a literary
man to the world as one anxious to obtain a small sum of money, in order
to put it into Wall street, for 'shaving purposes.' Now, the only
material question raised was the true signification of the word
'shaving.' If to say a man is a 'shaver,' in the sense in which it is
applied to the use of money, be bringing him into discredit, then was
the plaintiff's declaration sufficient; if not, it was insufficient,
being wanting in what is called an 'innuendo.' The dictionaries, and men
in general, understand by 'shaving,' 'extortion,' and nothing else. To
call a man a 'shaver' is to say he is an 'extortioner,' without going
into details. But, in Wall street, and among money-dealers, certain
transactions that, in their eyes, and by the courts, are not deemed
discreditable, have of late been brought within the category of
'shaving.' Thus it is technically, or by convention among bankers,
termed 'shaving' if a man buy a note at less than its face, which is a
legal transaction. On the strength of this last circumstance, _as is set
forth in the published opinions_, the highest Court of Appeals in New
York has decided that it does not bring a man into discredit to say he
is a 'shaver!'--thus making a conventional signification of the brokers
of Wall street higher authority for the use of the English tongue than
the standard lexicographers, and all the rest of those who use the
language! On the same principle, if a set of pickpockets at the Five
Points should choose to mystify their trade a little by including the
term 'to filch' the literal _borrowing_ of a pocket-handkerchief, it
would not be a libel to accuse a citizen of 'filching his neighbor's
handkerchief!'"

"But the libel was uttered to the _world_, and not to the brokers of
Wall Street only, who might possibly understand their own terms."

"Very true; and was uttered in a newspaper that carried t