re of
L10!

"CHAMPERTY--(_campi partitio_)--is a species of Maintenance, and
punished in the same manner; being a bargain with a plaintiff or
defendant '_campum partiri_,' to divide the land, or other matter
sued for, between them, if they prevail at law; whereupon the
champertor is to carry on the suit at his own expense.... These
pests of civil society, that are perpetually endeavoring to disturb
the repose of their neighbors, and officiously interfering in other
men's quarrels, even at the hazard of their own fortunes, were
severely animadverted on by the Roman law; and they were punished
by the forfeiture of a third part of their goods, and perpetual
infamy."[4]

These were pleasant passages surely!----

Many were the conversations and consultations which the partners had had
with Messrs. Mortmain and Frankpledge respectively, upon the interesting
question, whether there were any mode of at once securing themselves
against the ingratitude of Titmouse, and protecting themselves against
the penalties of the law. It made old Mr. Quirk's bald head, even, flush
all over whenever he thought of their bill being taxed, or contemplated
himself the inmate of a prison, (above all, at his advanced time of
life,) with mournful leisure to meditate upon the misdeeds that had sent
him thither, to which profitable exercise the legislature would have
specially stimulated him by a certain _fine_ above mentioned. As for
Gammon, he knew there _must_ be a way of doing the thing somehow or
another; for his friend Frankpledge felt infinitely less difficulty in
the way than Mortmain, whom he considered a timid and old-fashioned
practitioner. The courts, said Mr. Frankpledge, were now setting their
faces strongly against the doctrine of Maintenance, as being founded on
a bygone state of things: _cessante ratione cessat et ipsa lex_, was his
favorite maxim. There was no wrong without a remedy, he said; and was
there not a _wrong_ in the case of a poor man wrongfully deprived of his
own? And how could this be _remedied_, if the old law of Maintenance
stood like a bugbear in the way of humane and spirited practitioners?
Was no one to be at liberty to take up the cause of the oppressed,
encouraged by the prospect of an ample recompense? It might be said,
perhaps--let the claimant sue _in forma pauperis_: but then he must
swear that he is not worth five pounds; and a man may not be ab