we may truly state, that no single instance as adduced during the argument, of actual mischief or injury occasioned to defendants by the operation of this rule--we believe we may safely defy any one now to produce such a case. It is certainly possible for an anxious straining ingenuity to _imagine_ such cases; and where is the rule of law, which, in the infirmity of human institutions, cannot be shown capable of occasioning _possible_ mischief and injustice? One important distinction has not, we venture to think, been kept constantly in view by the House of Lords in arriving at their recent decision; we mean, the distinction between _defective_ counts and _unproved_ counts. It was principally in the former case that the annulled rule operated so advantageously for the interests of justice. Let us suppose a case. A man is charged with an offence; and the indictment contains three counts, which we will call A, B, C--each differently describing the same offence. He is proved in court to have actually done an act to which the law annexes a punishment, and a general verdict and judgment, awarding the correct _kind_ of punishment, are given and entered. If it afterwards became necessary to "make up" the record--_i. e._ to enter the proceedings in due and full form--it might appear that count A was essentially defective, as containing no "offence" at all. But what did that signify--or what would it have signified if count B had also been bad--provided count C was a good one, and warranted the punishment which had been inflicted? The only consequence was, that the indictment was a little longer than it turns out that it needed to have been. Though several hooks had been used in order to give an additional chance of catching the fish, that was not regretted, when, the fish having been caught, it turned out that two out of the three had not been strong enough; and that, had they alone been used, the fish must have escaped.