But a much more serious matter was the block in the Courts. This perennial grievance seems to have then been chiefly due to the shortness of the terms during which alone legal questions could be decided. _Nisi prius_ trials only could be disposed of in the vacations. Points of law or practice, however, cropped up in those days in even the simplest matter, and, since these often had to stand over from term to term, the luckless litigants were fortunate indeed if they had not to wait for years before the question in dispute was finally disposed of. The Common Law Procedure, moreover, literally bristled with technicalities. It was a system of solemn juggling. The real and imaginary causes of action were so mixed up together, the ‘pleadings’ required such a mass of senseless falsehood, that it is perfectly impossible that the parties to the action could have the least apprehension of what they were doing. Then no two different causes of action could be joined, but each had to be prosecuted separately through all its stages. None of the parties interested were competent to give evidence. It was not until 1851 that the plaintiff and the defendant, often the only persons who could give any account of the matter, could go into the witness-box. Mistakes in such a state of things were, of course, of common occurrence, and in those days mistakes were fatal. Proceedings by way of appeal were equally hazardous and often impracticable. The Exchequer Chamber could only take cognisance of ‘error’ raised by a ‘bill of exceptions;’ and even at this time the less that is said about that triumph of special pleading the better. The House of Lords could only sit as a Court of Error upon points which had run the gauntlet of the Exchequer Chamber. But perhaps the crowning grievance of all--a grievance felt equally keenly by suitors at law and in equity--arose from the limited powers of the Courts. If there were a remedy at law for any given wrong, for instance, the Court of Chancery could give no relief. In the same way, if it turned out, as it often did, that a plaintiff should have sued in equity instead of proceeding at law, he was promptly nonsuited. Law could not grant an injunction; equity could not construe an Act of Parliament.