WRITTEN EVIDENCE.

151

contents or a drawing of it may be admitted. In pedigree cases, and some other, in which reputation is the only proof that can be given, hearsay or secondary evidence may be given. Thus, entries in old Bibles, recitals in deeds, dates and particulars on ancient coffin-plates, &c. &c., are received as evidence.

Written evidence is proof by the production of written records or documents.

An examined copy of, or extract from, many papers of a public character may be admitted to prove a fact; and if such as are of a private nature happen to be in the custody, or under the control, of the adverse party, upon giving him notice to pro duce it, and his neglecting or refusing to do so, a copy or counterpart may be used as secondary evidence, or part testimony may be given of its contents.

Evidence thus composed is either direct or circumstantial. Direct evidence is such as plainly proves that a person did or said something. Circumstantial evidence is a combination of circumstances from which it may be inferred that he did so. I have already given you some instances of this latter kind of proof in my Letter upon the criminal procedure. The former requires no description. The admissibility or non-admissibility of evidence is a question for the judge. Its value in determining the issue, remains for the jury to consider.

I have given you but an imperfect outline of this important subject in the space which is left me. Half the discussions in our courts turn upon the law of evidence, and its study is one of the principal labours of those who follow the legal profession. But I trust, however, I have said enough to make you understand what is meant, when you hear some statement which to the uninitiated may appear to be conclusive proof, objected to in a court of justice as not being evidence.

LETTER XX.

CONCLUSION.

It

I MUST now draw our correspondence to an end, not because I have exhausted the subject upon which I have touched, but because I have gone as far as is for the present desirable. has been a labour of love to me, and to you, I hope, it will be a source not only of amusement, but instruction. I trust that the little information which I have imparted will only make you thirst to acquire more knowledge respecting the progress of our glorious constitution, and the theory and practice of a law which, taking it all in all, is the soundest in principle, and in practice the purest of any code, ancient or modern. In the politics of parties and the fate of cabinets you cannot at your ages, be expected to feel much interest; but every girl and boy in England ought to know the great value of the rights which they inherit; and what can be a more fascinating study than to trace through the pages of Blackstone, Hallam, or Macaulay, or De Lolme, the struggles, sacrifices, and triumphs of the brave and good men who won and protected these rights for us?

It is the fashion, nevertheless, with a certain class of our public writers and speakers to cry down the institutions of their country and to applaud to the echo those of foreign States. They may be perfectly conscientious in what they advance; but they are evidently too ready to expose the faults of our system, and not so willing to acknowledge the benefits which ought, in common fairness, to be set off against them. Such reasoners are too prone to fall into raptures at what they have seen, or heard of, abroad, after a very superficial examination. Strike a fair balance, and what country under the sun is so free, so happy, so secure as our own? We have a Queen upon the throne who, as a monarch, is an example to every crowned head, and as a Christian gentle

woman, a pattern to every fireside. We have an aristocracy that has learned to carry its pride without offence, and is ever active in its endeavours to do something for the people in return for the privileges which it enjoys. We have a middle-class that is raising imperishable monuments to its own industry and enterprise in every quarter of the globe. We have strong, honest workmen, without whose skill and strength those monuments would never rise. We have Poor honourably and bravely toiling, Poor ignorant and starving, Poor vicious and degraded, but I think that there are few amongst the community at large that are not adding their mite to the great work of encouraging, educating, providing for, and reforming them.

Can we look abroad to find that a better government than our own exists? No; with all its faults and short-comings— and they are many-the British Constitution stands preeminent amidst the ruling systems of the world. That this may long continue to be the case must be the fervent prayer of every loyal and patriotic Englishman, as it is of

Your affectionate father,

A. B.

INDEX.