attendance. In the event of their being excepted to, they will be obliged
(supposing them to reside in town) to attend personally in Court for the
purpose of justification; but he is able to prevent the necessity of their
previous attendance at the judge's chcmbers, by putting in at first any two
persons (whether responsible or not) who will allow themselves to be used for
the purpose, and afterwards substituting his friends as added bail.
De zo juist genoemde 'any two persons' waren de 'sham-baii'.
This state of things has created a class of men who earn a disgraceful
subsistence under the appellation of sham bail. They ply at Serjeant's
Inn, offering the use of their names, for a trifling gratuity, as bail for
defendants, to whom they are total strangers, in actions of which they know
nothing. When the bargain is made, they attend accordingly; are put in as
bail to the action; and though these men do not usually attempt to justify as
permanent bail in the cause, yet at all events they put the plaintiff to the
necessity of exception, of which considerable delay is often, as already
explained, the consequence.
Doordat het onderzoek naar de credietwaardigheid uiterst moeilijk was, had
de eiser meestal weinig baat bij dat onderzoek. Van 12 tot 28 November 1828
werden twee en tachtig keer de borgen aangevochten, maar slechts in twee
gevallen met succes. Het enige middel van onderzoek was nl. de
ondervraging. Een handige sham-bail kon er doorheen glippen. Uiteraard werd
er soms eentje ontdekt en dan wel eens gevangen gezet (meineed).
Het aanvechten van de bail geschiedde echter ook op geruchten en
ongegronde vermoedens. Dit leidde tot vertraging van de procesgang en
extra belasting van de rechtbanken. Zowel de Court of King's Bench, als de
Court of Common Pleas spraken in 1802 hun ongerustheid en
verontwaardiging hierover uit. In 1829 bevatte The Times een uitvoerige tirade
tegen de sham-bails en hun kornuiten, de sham-attornies.
One of the great evils against which it is the intention to attempt some
security to the public in the course of the next session of Parliament, is that of
hired bail. This evil has been hitherto considered inseparably connected with
arrest for debt, and is constantly occurring in our courts of law. It is, indeed,
of such constant practice, and the oaths administered are swallowed with
such ease and rapidity, although sufficient to choke any ordinary man's
conscience, that the courts are sometimes convulsed with laughter at the
boldness with which perjury is committed. The persons who hire themselves
out to give bail obtain a percentage according to the amount of the debt.
They are styled by the profession 'mounters,' or 'queer bail,' the former name
having been given to them from the circumstance of the Judges formerly
ordering practitioners in that way to mount the table, in order to be viewed
from top to toe. They are generally men who have been inmates of the
several prisons of the metropolis, and have passed the ordeal of a
commission of bankruptcy, or of the Insolvent Court. They are the colleagues
of the several pettifogging attornies who infest prisons to get business of any
sort, and who share with them in the profits of perjury. Persons of this
description know that their chances of escape from punishment, and
