The omission of this page might be noticed, as being an innovation. I publish my book because the story of the California Bar has never been told. In a free State, the profession of the law is the highway of ambition-a broad avenue, whence open fields of splendid possibility. Bar leaders walk before the universal eye. In older lands, a copious literature has made them its subject. Here, too, are masters of the Forum, to whom, with others gone before, many notable triumphs are to be credited. The meteoric McDougall, the eccentric Lockwood, the eloquent Hawks, the brilliant Byrne; Baker with a voice like Israfel; Randolph and Baldwin, noble remembrancers of the land and fame of Marshall; Felton and Murray, cut off in their manly pride and prime;-all have passed to their ultimate appeal. But their peers survive, and it is given me to tell the stirring story of the living and the dead.