Benjamnin F. Butler, Butler's Book: Autobiography and Personal Reminiscences of Major-General Benjamin Butler

I returned to my studies and practised in the Police Court, always carefully attending the sessions of the Superior Court, and coming home to the office to study from the books the questions of law raised at the bar. I so continued until the September term, 1840, for the Court of Common Pleas. The session was held in Lowell, and the Hon. Charles Henry Warren presided. Mr. Smith had quite given up the practice of the law in courts, although he had frequent applications for advice. He advised me to make application for admission to the bar, offering, if I were admitted, to go into partnership with me under my own name, because of his own financial difficulties.

As the law then stood, if a student had slept in a lawyer's office for three years, claiming that he was studying law, and his teacher would give him a certificate that he had done so, he could be admitted to the bar as a matter of course. But if the student had passed any less time in a lawyer's office, he had to be subjected to an examination by a judge of the higher courts before he could be admitted. Mr. Smith made an application for me to the judge for admission upon examination, stating that he thought I could pass the examination. The judge appointed an hour early that evening, at his lodging, for me to appear to be examined. He received me very kindly, and asked me when and where I graduated, and what I had done since. To all of this I answered, saying only that I had been attending to the law for two years, with the exception of three months that I had been engaged in teaching. He then asked me what text-books I had read. I told him. He said, “You have read very few text-books.” That was too true to be denied. He said that he thought I had better read a year longer, and that he would advise me so to do. I said I was very much obliged to him, and I thought I had better read five years longer, but the difficulty was I did not see how I could get the means to do it. He said that under the circumstances unless I insisted, he would rather not examine me. I said to him that it was necessary that I should be examined, if I were fit to enter the profession, and if I were not he would soon show me wherein I was deficient, and if it would not trouble him too much I desired the examination. He said, “Very well,” and began a series of questions upon the practice of the law. He supposed I had no knowledge of this, and thought he could