would otherwise be due upon it.

When a committing magistrate requires the defendant to give bail
to appear in a higher court, and he does not give it, he will be
committed to jail to await his trial there. In this court he is
sometimes tried on the complaint upon which he was originally
arrested: oftener a new accusation is prepared. This may be
either an information or an indictment.

At common law, no one could be tried for a felony unless a grand
jury were first satisfied that there was good ground for it. The
grand jury consisted of not more than twenty-four inhabitants of
the county, and in practice never of more than twenty-three,
summoned for that purpose to attend at the opening of a term of
court. To authorize a prosecution the assent of twelve of them
was required. They heard only the case for the prosecution, and
heard it in secret, after having been publicly charged by the
court as to the nature of the business which would be brought
before them. The court appointed one of them to act as their
foreman, and he reported back their conclusions in writing, and
in one or the other of two forms--by presentment or indictment.

A presentment was a presentation, on their own motion, of an
accusation against one or more persons. They were the official
representatives of the public before the court, and it might well
be that offenses had occurred, and become matters of common
notoriety, prosecutions for which no one cared or dared to bring.
Such a proceeding was comparatively rare.

The common course was to pass only on such written accusations as