M Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year eighteen hundred and eighty, by In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. این Third Impression. PREFACE. In this volume I assume that the reader is familiar with the general principles of the Law of Evidence, and is concerned with their proper application in actual practice. I have accordingly sought to state the most useful, convenient, and trustworthy rules as to the mode of proof of each material fact in all the great classes of actions and defenses; and to illustrate and support these rules by a selection of authorities drawn from the decisions of all the American and English courts, and from the works of the best text-writers. Recent changes in procedure, accompanying or resulting from the Code practice, have had far-reaching consequences in respect to the mode of dealing with the subject of evidence. The abolition of formal distinctions affecting actions and suits, the new methods of pleading, the abrogation of former disqualifications of witnesses, and the advance in assimilating the practice in the United States courts to that in the State courts, have silently effected many radical changes in the mode of proof, and have had a wide and powerful influence upon the practical applica tion of the general principles of evidence. In consequence of these modifications of the law, most of the questions as to competency of witnesses and the effect of the pleadings, which formerly occupied so much attention, have dropped out of notice, and questions of the relevancy and competency of particular facts relating more or less directly to the issue, and of the weight and cogency of evidence, have been brought into new importance. Since the law has given to the trial courts increased freedom in the admission of evidence, the appellate courts justly use increased care in scrutinizing questions of evidence, that they may relieve against all substantial errors which transcend the limits of that freedom. And there has also been a general advance in the development of the rules by which appellate courts (in proper cases) reweigh the evidence on which facts have been found in the trial courts. Hence discussions on questions of evidence, in our appellate courts, are now more important and more frequent than ever before; and |