540 DUVALL v. WATERS.—1 BLAND.

an estrepement, as waste; and when proposed to be restrained by
injunction as trespass, has been attended with some confusion,
and therefore in relation to the peculiar species of injunctions,
now under consideration, all such acts as would be deemed waste,
when done by an admitted particular tenant, if done after the in-
stitution of any salt involving the title, or of a suit for partition,
it may be well to denominate eventual waste.

The judicial records of the State, and the Acts of Assembly
regulating officers' fees shew, that the writ of waste as well as the
writ of estrepement were at one time in common use in Maryland.
2 Harr. Eut. 149. 800; Adams v. Brereton, 3 H. & J. 124; 1763, ch.
18, s. 89 & 94; 1779, ch. 25, s. 2. But here, as in England, these
writs have fallen into disuse, and are now seldom, or never brought,
having given away to the more easy and expeditious remedy by
an action upon the case in nature of waste at common law; b3'
which the plaintiff obtains satisfaction for the injury done to his
inheritance by a recovery of damages alone. 3 Blac. Com. 227;
Greene v. Cole, 2 Saund. 252, note 7; White v. Wagner, 4 H. & J.
373; McLaughlin v. Long, 5 H. & J. 113. And in Maryland to
an injunction from Chancery which performs the office of a writ of
estrepement.

The whole subject of waste, in Maryland, seems to have passed,
almost altogether, from the cognizance of the Courts of common
law to that of the Court of Chancery; and the shifting of this
matter so entirely, from the one jurisdiction to the other, may be
attributed to the nature of the injury requiring redress; to the
different constitutions of the tribunals; and to their peculiar modes
of proceeding. Waste is a wrong which cannot always be duly
estimated and remunerated in damages; it is an injury which
requires to be met, in its onset, or earliest approaches, by a strong
and decisive preventive remedy, acting with a promptness almost
amounting to surprise; and yet affording to the party restrained a
speedy hearing. No adequate remedy of this kind, it is evident,
can be obtained from a Court of common law, open only at short
intervals during the year; acting from term to term; and
576 * limited to a given set of technical forms of proceeding.
Hence it is, that the remedy has been so constantly, in modern
times, sought in the Court of Chancery, which is always open, con-
stantly accessible, and is capable of moving with an energy and
despatch called for by the emergency, and suited to the peculiar
nature of the case.

In general an injunction may be obtained, in this State as in
England, to stay waste in all cases where an action of waste would
he at common law, whether there be any privity of the title or
not; The Mayor & Com. Norwich v. Johnson, 3 Mod. 90; S. C. 2
Show: 457; and in a variety of others in which no such action could
be brought, even where there was a subsisting privity of title or