ART. 75.] PRACTICE—EJECTMENT. 1129

amount of damages claimed by the plaintiff; a copy of the declar-
ation, with a writ of summons, as in other cases, addressed to the
defendant, shall be served on each of the defendants, or, if they
cannot be found, upon the person or persons in actual possession
of the land described in the declaration; and if there be no person
in possession of the premises, or if the same be unimproved
vacant property, a copy of the declaration and summons shall be
conspicuously posted and set up upon the premises, and notice of
the object of the suit and of the substance of the declaration shall
be published as the court shall direct, giving notice to the said
defendants to appear to and defend the said action by a day to be
named by the court, not less than twenty days from the first pub-
lication of said notice; to this declaration the defendant or any
other person, with leave of the court, may appear and plead not
guilty to the action, which plea shall be held a confession of the
possession and ejectment, and shall only put in issue the title to
the premises and right of possession and the amount of damages
claimed by the plaintiff; but any defendant may refuse to appear
or file a disclaimer of title to the land or any part thereof, in
which case the plaintiff shall recover judgment against the de-
fendant so disclaiming or refusing to defend for the land or so
much thereof as shall not be defended, but the costs shall be sub-
ject to the discretion of the court, and the trial shall then proceed
against the party making the defence under the rules and practice
of the court as the same existed prior to the year eighteen
hundred and seventy, except so far as the same are changed by
this article; and the plaintiff shall also recover as damages in this
action the mesne profits and damages sustained by him and caused
by the ejectment and detention of the premises up to the time of
the determination of the case.

Mitchell v. Mitchell, 21 Md 585. N C R. R. Co. v. Canton Co., 24 Md. 492.
Tongue v. Nutwell, 31 Md. 302. Mears v.Eemare, 33 Md. 251. Mackenzie v.
Renshaw, 55 Md. 298. Hecht v. Colquhoun, 57 Md. 563. Johnson v. Hines,
61 Md. 132.

1872, ch. 346.

70. In all cases between landlord and tenant, as often as it
shall happen that one-half year's rent shall be in arrear, and the
landlord or lessor to whom the same is due, hath right by law to
re-enter for the non-payment thereof, such landlord or lessor