enman,
Cottenham, and Campbell, succeeded in showing the rule in question to
have been founded on wrong principles?

After as close and fair an examination of the judgments given in the
House of Lords as we are capable of bestowing upon any subject, we have
arrived at the conclusion that the Chancellor and judges were plainly
right, and the peers who differed from them as plainly wrong. They
doubtless believed that they were eradicating an erroneous and
mischievous practice from the administration of criminal law; but we
entertain grave fears that they have not duly considered the many
important reasons and necessities out of which that practice
originated, and which, in our opinion, will require the legislature
either to restore it, or devise some other expedient in lieu of it--if
one so efficacious _can_ be found--after a very brief experience of the
practical mischiefs and inconveniences which the decision of the House
of Lords will entail upon the administration of criminal justice.

Mr Justice Coltman observes,[17] that "in old times an indictment
contained one single count only;" and that, "now it has become usual to
insert _many_ counts." It _has_ become usual--it should rather be said
_necessary_; but why? Because of the rigid precision which the law, in
spite of the subtle and complicated character of its modern mode of
administration, has long thought fit to require for the protection of
the subject, in the statement of an offence charged against an
individual. Unless that degree of _generality_ in framing criminal
charges, which has been so severely reprobated, in the present instance,
by Lord Denman, and which led the judges unanimously to condemn the
sixth and seventh counts, shall be henceforth permitted, justice _must_,
so to speak, be allowed to have many strings to her bow; otherwise the
very great distinctness and particularity which constitute the legal
notion of _certainty_, are only a trap and a snare for her. There is a
twofold necessity for allowing the reasonable multiplication of counts:
one, to meet the difficulty often arising out of the adjustment of the
statement in the charge to the evidence which is to support it; and the
other, to obviate the great difficulty, in many cases, of framing the
charge with perfect legal certainty and precision. Look for a striking
illustration at the sixth and seventh counts of this very indictment.
Few practical lawyers, we venture to think, would have prono