The True and Scandalous History of Howe & Hummel

Out of Print

A very entertaining and lively little book. Messrs. Howe and Hummel were the most notorious lawyers of the New York of the Eighteen 'Eighties and 'Nineties, and became almost figures of legend and served often as prototypes for "shysters" in American fiction and drama.

Howe, of English extraction, was a massive fellow, glittering with diamonds; and he was the courtroom expert, the hypnotiser of juries. Hummel, many years younger than Howe, was a tiny fellow, a kind of dandy midget, and he attended to affairs in the office, while Howe thundered or wept in court, and was considered "the brains of the act", being infinitely resourceful, cunning and knowledgeable of the ways in which to make the Law outwit Justice.

'It is impossible for any decent citizen to approve of these two scoundrels. But it is also very difficult to dislike them. My only complaint about this account of them is that it is not long enough. I was prepared to read about them for days on end in a chronicle like this that bubbles and winks like all the champagne they drank and glitters like the diamonds they wore. As they used to say in New York: Hummel-and Howe!
J.B. Priestly Writes in
The Bookman