for the return of things stolen, 'or lost,' with no questions asked, or words to the same purport, subjects the advertiser and the printer or publisher' to a forfeiture of 50l. to any person who will sue for the same, who is entitled also to his full costs of suit. 10. Common barretry is the offence of frequently exciting and stirring up suits and quarrels between her Majesty's subjects, either at law or otherwise," and was the subject of a prohibitory statute as early as the reign of Edward the First.' The punishment for this offence, in a common person, is by fine and imprisonment; but if the offender, as is too frequently the case, belongs to the profession of the law, a barretor, who is thus able as well as willing to do mischief, ought also to be disabled from practising for the future. Hereunto may also be referred another offence, of equal malignity and audaciousness; that of suing another in the name of a fictitious plaintiff; either one not in being at all, or one who is ignorant of the suit. This offence, if committed in any of the superior courts, is left, as a high contempt, to be punished at their discretion. But in courts of a lower degree, where the crime is equally pernicious, but the authority of the judges not equally extensive, it is directed by statute 8 Eliz. c. 2, to be punished by six months' imprisonment, and treble damages to the party injured. k 11. Maintenance is an offence that bears a near relation to the former; being an officious intermeddling in a suit that no way belongs to one, by maintaining or assisting either party with money or otherwise, to prosecute or defend it: a practice that was greatly encouraged by the first introduction of uses. This is an offence against public justice, as it keeps alive strife and contention, and perverts the remedial process of the law into an engine of oppression. And therefore, by the Roman law, it was a species of the crimen falsi to enter into any confederacy, or do any act to support another's lawsuit, by money, witnesses, or h 1 Hawk. P. C. 213. 13 Edw. I. c. 33. j 1 Hawk. P. C. 244. By 12 Geo. I. c. 29, '& 21 Geo. II. c. 3,' if any one, who has been convicted of common barretry, shall practise as an attorney, solicitor, or agent, in any suit, the court, upon complaint or information, shall examine the matter in a summary way in open patronage. A man may however maintain the suit of his near kinsman, servant, or poor neighbour, out of charity and compassion, with impunity. Otherwise the punishment by common law is fine and imprisonment; and by the statute 32 Hen. VIII. c. 9, a forfeiture of ten pounds. m 12. Champerty, campi partitio, is a species of maintenance, and punished in the same manner:" being a bargain with a plaintiff or defendant campum partire, to divide the land or other matter sued for between them, if they prevail at law; whereupon the champertor is to carry on the party's suit at his own expense." Thus champart, in the French law, signifies a similar division of profits, being a part of the crop annually due to the landlord by bargain or custom. In our sense of the word it signifies the purchasing of a suit, or right of suing: a practice so much abhorred by our law, that it is one main reason why a chose in action, or thing of which one has the right but not the possession, is not assignable at common law; because no man should purchase any pretence to sue in another's right." These pests of civil society, that are perpetually endeavouring to disturb the repose of their neighbours, and officiously interfering in other men's quarrels, even at the hazard of their own fortunes, were severely animadverted on by the Roman law, "qui improbe cœunt in alienam "litem, ut quicquid ex condemnatione in rem ipsius redactum fuerit "inter eos communicaretur, lege Julia de vi privata tenentur:" and they were punished by the forfeiture of a third part of their goods, and perpetual infamy. These offences relate chiefly to the commencement of civil suits: but 13. The compounding of informations upon penal statutes are offences of an equivalent nature in criminal causes; and are, besides, an additional misdemeanor against public justice, by 1 Ff. 48, 10, 20. m 1 Hawk. P. C. 255. n Ibid. 257. • Stat. of Conspirat. 33 Edw. I. P Hitherto also must be referred the provision of the statute 32 Hen. VIII. c. 9, that no one shall sell or purchase any pretended right or title to land, unless the vendor has received the profits thereof for one whole year before such grant, or has been in actual posses sion of the land, or of the reversion or contributing to make the laws odious to the people. At once therefore to discourage malicious informers, and to provide that offences, when once discovered, shall be duly prosecuted, it is enacted by statute 18 Eliz. c. 5, that if any person, informing under pretence of any penal law, makes any composition without leave of the court, or takes any money or promise from the defendant to excuse him, which demonstrates his intent in commencing the prosecution to be merely to serve his own ends, and not for the public good, he shall forfeit 107., shall stand two hours on the pillory, for which punishment fine and imprisonment are now substituted,' and shall be for ever disabled to sue on any popular or penal statute. 14. A conspiracy also to indict an innocent man of felony falsely and maliciously," is a farther abuse and perversion of public justice; for which the party injured may either have a civil action, or the conspirators, for there must be at least two to form a conspiracy, may be indicted at the suit of the crown, and · were by the ancient common law to receive what is called the villenous judgment; viz., to lose their liberam legem, whereby they were discredited and disabled as jurors or witnesses; to forfeit their goods and chattels, and lands for life; to have those lands wasted, their houses rased, their trees rooted up, and their own bodies committed to prison." But the villenous judgment is by long disuse become obsolete; it not having been pronounced for some ages: but instead thereof the delinquents are sentenced to imprisonment, with or without hard labour,' and fine,—and, 'when that species of punishment existed, were put in the' pillory. 'It is no excuse for a conspiracy to carry on a malicious prosecution, that the indictment was itself insufficient, or that the court before which it was preferred had no jurisdiction to try it, although, in consequence of these circumstances, the party was never really brought into danger. Nor will it avail the defendant that he intended only to give evidence on a trial not then commenced, for the law makes the mere intent in such case criminal.' * 56 Geo. III. c. 138. 'Sir W. Blackstone adds,' who is accordingly indicted and acquitted; 'but it is difficult to see on what principle the indictment and acquittal of the innocent individual is necessary to con stitute the offence.' W t Bro. Abr. tit. Conspiracy, 28. v 14 & 15 Vict. c. 100, s. 29. 6 The intent is indeed the essence of the offence of conspiracy; which is defined to be, when two or more combine together to execute some act for the purpose of injuring a third person or the public. It consists, not in the accomplishment of any unlawful or injurious purpose, nor in any one act moving towards that purpose; but in the actual concert or agreement of two or more persons to effect something, which, being so concerted and agreed, the law regards as the object of conspiracy. The offence is consequently more difficult to be ascertained than any other known to the law; and we must look to the decisions of the courts for guidance as to what is and what is not a conspiracy.' 'All confederacies to prejudice a third person, as to impoverish him so as to prevent him carrying on his trade; to cheat him in the purchase of a horse; to charge him with being the reputed father of a bastard child; to prefer an indictment against him, for the purpose of extorting money; or to injure his reputation by preferring a complaint before a magistrate, though no complaint be preferred, are indictable.' "The combination among brokers usually called a "knock out," is indictable as a conspiracy; the difficulty is to prove it. Bankers may conspire to cheat their creditors by false balance sheets; horsedealers to defraud a purchaser by selling him an unsound horse; traders to cheat an intending partner by false representations of their profits; and persons to defraud tradesmen by causing themselves to be reputed men of property.' 'There have been conspiracies to hiss and so condemn a play ; to marry a girl for her fortune; to seduce a girl; to get a pauper married by unlawful means, so as to shift the burden of supporting her from one parish to another; to commit an offence; and to prevent the prosecution of an offence.' Burns' Justice of the Peace, tit. Conspiracy. yIt is laid down, that journeymen confederating and refusing to work for certain wages may be indicted for a conspiracy, the offence consisting in the conspiracy, and not in the refusal; all conspiracies being illegal, although the subject-matter may be lawful. See Burns' Justice, tit. Conspiracy. The conviction, in 1874, of certain gas stokers, as of a conspiracy to abstain from work, upon this view of the law, led to the statute 38 & 39 Vict. c. 86; whereby it is enacted that an agreement or combination by two or three persons, to do, or procure to be done, any act in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute between employers and workmen, shall not be indictable as a conspiracy, if such act committed by one person would not be punishable as a crime.' 15. The next offence against public justice is the crime of wilful and corrupt perjury; which is defined by Sir Edward Coke, to be a crime committed when a lawful oath is administered, in some judicial proceeding, to a person who swears wilfully, absolutely, and falsely, in a matter material to the issue or point in question. The common' law takes no notice of any perjury. but such as is committed in some court of justice, having power to administer an oath; or before some magistrate or proper officer, invested with a similar authority, in some proceedings relative to a civil suit or a criminal prosecution: for it esteems. all other oaths unnecessary at least, and therefore will not punish the breach of them. The statute 5 & 6 Will. IV. c. 62, however, substituting declarations in lieu of oaths in various cases, subjects. all false declarations to the penalties of perjury; and a great many statutes, too numerous to be mentioned here, expressly provide that persons making false statements or declarations on oath, relating to the subject-matter of these acts, shall be liable to the penalties of perjury, and punished accordingly.' 6 The perjury must be corrupt, that is, committed malo animo, wilful, positive, and absolute; not upon surprise, or the like; it also must be in some point material to the question in dispute; for if it only be in some trifling collateral circumstance, to which no regard is paid, it is not penal. b Subornation of perjury is the offence of procuring another to take such a false oath, as constitutes perjury in the principal. The punishment of perjury and subornation, at common law, has been various. It was anciently death; afterwards banishment, or cutting out the tongue; then forfeiture of goods; and now it is fine and imprisonment," with or without hard labour, as the court shall think fit.' The statutes 5 Eliz. c. 9, and 29 Eliz. c. 5, if the offender were prosecuted thereon, inflicted the penalty of perpetual infamy, and a fine of 407. on the suborner; and in default of payment, imprisonment for six months, and to stand with both ears nailed to the pillory. Perjury itself is thereby punished with six months' imprisonment, perpetual infamy, and a fine of 207., or to have both ears nailed to the pillory. To these |