It follows, therefore, that this high court (bound by none of their rules) has a liberty to adopt the methods of any of the legal courts of the kingdom at its discretion; and in _sound_ discretion it ought to adopt those which bear the nearest resemblance to its own constitution, to its own procedure, and to its exigencies in the promotion of justice. There are conveniencies and inconveniencies both in the shorter and the longer mode of trial. But to bring the methods observed (if such are in fact observed) in the former, only from necessity, into the latter, by choice, is to load it with the inconveniency of both, without the advantages of either. The chief benefit of any process which admits of adjournments is, that it may afford means of fuller information and more mature deliberation. If neither of the parties have a strict right to it, yet the court or the jury, as the case may be, ought to demand it. Your Committee is of opinion, that all rules relative to laches or neglects in a party to the suit, which may cause nonsuit on the one hand or judgment by default in the other, all things which cause the party _cadere in jure_, ought not to be adhered to in the utmost rigor, even in civil cases; but still less ought that spirit which takes advantage of lapses and failures on either part to be suffered to govern in causes criminal. "Judges ought to _lean_ against every attempt to nonsuit a plaintiff on objections which have no relation to the real merits. It is unconscionable in a defendant to take advantage of the _apices litigandi_: against such objections _every possible presumption ought to be made which ingenuity can suggest_. How disgraceful would it be to the administration of justice to allow chicane to obstruct right!"[75] This observation of Lord Mansfield applies equally to every means by which, indirectly as well as directly, the cause may fail upon any other principles than those of its merits. He thinks that all the resources of ingenuity ought to be employed to baffle chicane, not to support it. The case in which Lord Mansfield has delivered this sentiment is merely a civil one. In civil causes of _meum et tuum_, it imports little to the commonwealth, whether _Titus_ or _Maevius_ profits of a legacy, or whether _John a Nokes_ or _John a Stiles_ is seized of the manor of _Dale_. For which reason, in many cases, the private interests of men are left by courts to suffer by their own neglects and their own want of vigilance, as their fortunes are permitted to suffer from the same causes in all the concerns of common life. But in crimes, where the prosecution is on the part of the public, (as all criminal prosecutions are, except appeals,) the public prosecutor ought not to be considered as a plaintiff in a cause of _meum et tuum_; nor the prisoner, in such a cause, as a common defendant. In such a cause the state itself is highly concerned in the event: on the other hand, the prisoner may lose life,