he chose this particular Inn of Court (his uncle J. Comyns Carr, his only connection with the bar, was a member of the Inner Temple), but the most likely explanation was that the Middle Temple was popular with Irish barristers, and Hastings was of Irish ancestry. The examinations required to become a barrister were not particularly difficult or expensive, but once a student passed all the exams he would be expected to pay the then-enormous sum of £100 (equivalent to approximately £ in 2015) when he was called to the bar and Hastings was literally penniless. As soon as he joined the Middle Temple, Hastings began saving money for his call to the bar, starting with half a crown from the sale of his Queen's South Africa Medal to a pawnbroker. The rules and regulations of the Inns of Court meant that a student was not allowed to work as a "tradesperson" but there was no rule against working as a journalist, and his cousin Philip Carr, a drama critic for the Daily News, got him a job writing a gossip column for the News for one pound a week. This job lasted about three months; both he and Carr were fired after Hastings wrote a piece for the paper that should have been done by Carr. Despite this, his new contacts within journalism allowed him to get temporary jobs writing play reviews for the Pall Mall Gazette and the Ladies' Field. After two years of working eighteen-hour days he had saved £60 of the £100 needed to be called to the bar, but had still not studied for the examinations as he could not afford to buy any law books. Over the next year his income decreased, as he was forced to study for the examinations rather than work for newspapers. By the end of May 1904 he had the £100 needed, and he was called to the bar on 15 June. Career as a barrister At the time, there was no organised way for a new barrister to find a pupil master or set of barristers' chambers, and in addition the barrister would be expected to pay the pupil master between 50 and 100 guineas (equivalent to between £ and £ in 2015). This was out of the question for Hastings; thanks to the cost of his call to the bar, he was so poor that his wig