Generation game

'Don't let your son be a lawyer' shouts the headline from the London Evening Standard.

The anonymous solicitor author writes: 'The profession is greatly overcrowded and the legal business worth having is in the hands of a few large London and provincial firms.' He goes on in the article to correct the 'erroneous impression' of the general public 'that solicitors are very well paid'.

Indeed, despite a long, rigorous and expensive training, 'many solicitors fail to make a living sufficient to enable them to keep up the standard expected of the average professional man'.

And he concludes: 'Therefore if you, a parent, have a son or daughter worrying you to allow them to plunge into a legal career, I would offer such son or daughter the good advice given to the young man about to marry - don't.' A recent article perhaps? Yet another sad indictment of life at the tough end of the modern legal profession where work and top salaries are at a premium? Actually, it was published on 22 February 1939.

Thanks to Simon Dawson of Surrey firm Bertram White for the cutting.

Plus ca change, eh?