Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1890 edition. Excerpt: ...which in themselves were highly suspicious. One of the alleged witnesses, however, a man of a good position in life, and as far as appeared wholly indifferent in the matter, swore most positively and circumstantially to its execution, and in the first and I think the second trial--for there were three--his oath was believed by the jury. It will appear on the fullest investigation that all defects whatever in the truthfulness of evidence may be ascribed either to a defect of power or of will to tell the truth. I may Chap. XVI. add that some degree of oral evidence is necessary in all cases whatever, though admissions by the parties may often supersede the necessity for giving it. If the identity of any person or thing is disputed, it must be proved, unless it belongs to the small list of matters of which judicial notice is takeu. This consideration of the more general topics which affect the credibility of evidence naturally suggests the means which are available for testing its truth. These are two--namely, first, corroboration and contradiction, and secondly, cross-examination, the process by which corroborations and contradictions are most frequently put forward and tested. As to evidence in confirmation or in contradiction of a statement made, it is open, of course, to the same general observations as have been made already upon the general deductions to be made from the credibility of all oral evidence arising from want of power or want of will on the part of a witness to speak the truth. Cross-examination requires some further remarks. It is a process by which the most severe of all tests may be applied to the witness under examination, and if he sustains it satisfactorily it may usually be said that nothing which makes his story...
