“ A fine, in the ordinary sense, is a pecuniary penalty inflicted for the less serious offences. Fines are necessarily discretionary as to amount; but a maximum is generally fixed when the penalty is imposed by statute. ”

“ In real action, such lands when recovered would have fallen under the settlement of entail; but in the fictitious recovery the vouchee was a man of straw, and nothing was really recovered from him, while the lands of the tenant-in-tail were effectually conveyed to the successful plaintiff. A recovery differed from a fine, as to form, in being an action carried through to the end, while a fine was settled by compromise, and as to effect, by barring all reversions and remainders in estates tail, while a fine barred the issue only of the tenant. ”

“ And it is an old constitutional maxim that fines must not be unreasonable. In Magna Carta, c. 111, it is ordained “Liber homo non amercietur pro parvo delicto nisi secundum modum ipsius delicti, et pro magno delicto secundum magnitudinem delicti.” ”