Some paid and others did not. Mr. Howe paid all
that Mr. Giles required, but that was very little compared with the
service rendered. The litigation over the Howe patent was severe and
the questions in a mechanical point of view were nice questions. Mr.
Giles began with the invention, and he became a master of the case.
Mr. Howe was indebted to Mr. Giles for the success of his litigation
which established his claim to the invention, secured to him as the
proceeds what might have been an enormous fortune, and placed his name
in the list of the names of great inventors. The patent-law practice
is the most exhausting branch of the legal profession, and the lawyers
and experts suffer from brain diseases in excess of the average of
sufferers in other branches of the profession.
XX
THE YEAR 1854
At the session of the Legislature, January, 1854, the town of
Fitchburg, aided by towns and citizens of the vicinity, petitioned for
a new county to be composed of towns to be taken from the counties of
Middlesex and Worcester and to be called the county of Webster. Mr.
Choate was retained for the new county, and I appeared for the county
of Middlesex. The hearing by the committee occupied two weeks or more,
for an hour or an hour and a half a day. The fees received seem now to
have been very small. It was said that Mr.
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