By Advice of Counsel | Page 4

"But he's a very elegant and gentlemanly person," objected Miss
Wiggin as she warmed the cups. "My idea of a shyster is a
down-at-the-heels, unshaved and generally disreputable-looking
police-court lawyer--preferably with a red nose--who murders the
English language--and who makes his living by preying upon the
ignorant and helpless."
"Like Finklestein?" suggested Tutt.
"Exactly!" agreed Miss Wiggin. "Like Finklestein."
"He's one of the most honorable men I know!" protested Mr. Tutt. "My
dear Minerva, you are making the great mistake--common, I confess, to
a large number of people--of associating dirt and crime. Now dirt may
breed crime, but crime doesn't necessarily breed dirt."
"You don't have to be shabby to prey upon the ignorant and helpless,"
argued Tutt. "Some of our most prosperous brethren are the worst
sharks out of Sing Sing."
"That is true!" she admitted, "but tell it not in Gath!"
"A shyster," began Mr. Tutt, unsuccessfully applying a forced draft to
his stogy and then throwing it away, "bears about the same relation to
an honest lawyer as a cad does to a gentleman. The fact that he's well
dressed, belongs to a good club and has his name in the Social Register
doesn't affect the situation. Clothes don't make men; they only make
opportunities."
"But why is it," persisted Miss Wiggin, "that we invariably associate
the idea of crime with that of 'poverty, hunger and dirt'?"

"That is easy to explain," asserted Mr. Tutt. "The criminal law
originally dealt only with crimes of violence--such as murder, rape and
assault. In the old days people didn't have any property in the modern
sense--except their land, their cattle or their weapons. They had no
bonds or stock or bank accounts. Now it is of course true that rough,
ignorant people are much more prone to violence of speech and action
than those of gentle breeding, and hence most of our crimes of violence
are committed by those whose lives are those of squalor. But"--and
here Mr. Tutt's voice rose indignantly--"our greatest mistake is to
assume that crimes of violence are the most dangerous to the state, for
they are not. They cause greater disturbance and perhaps more
momentary inconvenience, but they do not usually evince much moral
turpitude. After all, it does no great harm if one man punches another in
the head, or even in a fit of anger sticks a dagger in him. The police can
easily handle all that. The real danger to the community lies in the
crimes of duplicity--the cheats, frauds, false pretenses, tricks and
devices, flimflams--practised most successfully by well-dressed
gentlemanly crooks of polished manners."
By this time the kettle was boiling cheerfully, quite as if no such thing
as criminal law existed at all, and Miss Wiggin began to make the tea.
"All the same," she ruminated, "people--particularly very poor
people--are often driven to crime by necessity."
"It's Nature's first law," contributed Tutt brightly.
Mr. Tutt uttered a snort of disgust.
"It may be Nature's first law, but it's about the weakest defense a guilty
man can offer. 'I couldn't help myself' has always been the excuse for
helping oneself!"
"Rather good--that!" approved Miss Wiggin. "Can you do it again?"
"The victim of circumstances is inevitably one who has made a victim
of someone else," blandly went on Mr. Tutt without hesitation.

"Ting-a-ling! Right on the bell!" she laughed.
"It's true!" he assured her seriously. "There are two defenses that are
played out--necessity and instigation. They've never been any good
since the Almighty overruled Adam's plea in confession and avoidance
that a certain female co-defendant took advantage of his hungry
innocence and put him up to it."
"No one could respect a man who tried to hide behind a woman's
skirts!" commented Tutt.
"Are you referring to Adam?" inquired his partner. "Anyhow, come to
think of it, the maxim is not that 'Necessity is the first law of Nature,'
but that 'Necessity knows no law.'"
"I'll bet you--" began Tutt. Then he paused, recalling a certain
celebrated wager which he had lost to Mr. Tutt upon the question of
who cut Samson's hair. "I bet you don't know who said it!" he
concluded lamely.
"If I recall correctly," ruminated Mr. Tutt, "Shakspere says in 'Julius
Caesar' that 'Nature must obey necessity'; while Rabelais says
'Necessity has no law'; but the quotation we familiarly use is 'Necessity
knows no law except to conquer,' which is from Publilius Syrus."
"From who?" cried Tutt in ungrammatical surprise.
"Never mind!" soothed Miss Wiggin. "Anyway, it wasn't Raphael B.
Hogan."
"Who certainly completely satisfies your definition so far as preying
upon the ignorant and helpless is concerned," said Mr. Tutt. "That man
is a human hyena--worse than a highwayman."
"Yet he's a swell dresser," interjected Tutt. "Owns his house and lives
in amity with his wife."
"Doubtless he's