Those which have to do immediately with ownership on a large scale are the most reputable of economic employments proper.

Next to these in good repute come those employments that are immediately subservient to ownership and financiering--such as banking and the law.

Banking employments also carry a suggestion of large ownership, and this fact is doubtless accountable for a share of the prestige that attaches to the business.
The profession of the law does not imply large ownership; but since no taint of usefulness, for other than the competitive purpose, attaches to the lawyer's trade, it grades high in the conventional scheme.

The lawyer is exclusively occupied with the details of predatory fraud, either in achieving or in checkmating chicanery, and success in the profession is therefore accepted as marking a large endowment of that barbarian astuteness which has always commanded men's respect and fear.
Mercantile pursuits are only half-way reputable, unless they involve a large element of ownership and a small element of usefulness.

They grade high or low somewhat in proportion as they serve the higher or the lower needs; so that the business of retailing the vulgar necessaries of life descends to the level of the handicrafts and factory labor.