Philadelphia.
_Lawyers' Bags_ (Vol. vii. _passim_).--The communication of MR. KERSLEY, in
p. 557., although it does not support the inference which COL. LANDMAN
draws, that the colour of lawyers' bags was changed in consequence of the
unpopularity which it acquired at the trial of Queen Caroline, seems to
show that _green_ was at one time the colour of those professional pouches.
The question still remains, when and on what occasion it was discontinued;
and when the purple, and when the crimson, were introduced?
When I entered the profession (about fifty years ago), no junior barrister
presumed to carry a bag in the Court of Chancery, unless one had been
presented to him by a king's counsel; who, when a junior was advancing in
practice, took an opportunity of complimenting him on his increase of
business, and giving him his own bag to carry home his papers. It was then
a distinction to carry a bag, and a proof that a junior was rising {21} in
his profession. I do not know whether the same custom prevailed in the
other courts.