I say by accident: for as in the case of offences against the public merely, accident will sometimes raise up a private prosecutor in the person of a chance individual, so in matters of remunerative procedure will accident sometimes raise up a contestor in the person of some member of the body by whose appointment the reward is bestowed. This supposes that the reward is to be in the appointment of a body; so that if it be at the appointment of a single person, the chance of contestation is altogether wanting. This chance will of course be the greater the more numerous that body: but if the body be very small, especially if it be composed without any mixture of different interests and partialities, and its deliberations held in secret, it will amount to nothing. If the business be confined to three, or four, or half a dozen, who are intimately connected, the bargain is soon made: ``You serve my friend, I serve yours.'' Even if the assembly be ever so numerous, the chance of contestation is but a precarious one. The task is at any rate an invidious task: he must be a man of more than common public spirit, added to more than common courage, who, unprompted by party jealousy and uncompelled by office, will undertake it: nor have instances been wanting when the most numerous and discordant assemblies have concurred unanimously in the vote of rewards, which the majority have been known individually to disapprove.