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ON

THE LAW OF EVIDENCE

IN SCOTLAND

BY

WILLIAM GILLESPIE DICKSON

ADVOCATE

PROCUREUR AND ADVOCATE-GENERAL OF THE MAURITIUS

SECOND EDITION

EDITED BY

JOHN SKELTON, ADVOCATE.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. II.

EDINBURGH:
BELL & BRADFUTE, 12 BANK STREET.

WILLIAM MAXWELL, LONDON.

MDCCCLXIV.

JOHN BAXTER, PRINTER, JAMES COURT, HEAD OF MOUND,

EDINBURGH,

TITLE II.

OF WRITINGS OF A PUBLIC AND OFFICIAL CHARACTER

AND OF ANALOGOUS WRITINGS.

$ 1051. Public and official written evidence comprehends all those documents which are prepared under the care of official persons, for the purpose of preserving evidence of matters in which the public are interested. Some of these documents relate to the affairs of the nation, and are preserved in the national archives. Others are immediately connected with private transactions, but are intrusted to official care, on account of the matters which they embody affecting the interest of third parties, or with a view to preserving them. There are also documents which, relating to private affairs and prepared by private persons, are compiled systematically with the same kind of care as is observed in public offices; for example, the business books of banking and railway companies and of extensive mercantile houses. The quasi official character of such writings, and their general trustworthiness, has given them a position in the law of evidence analogous to that occupied by official

registers.

CHAPTER 1.-ACTS OF PARLIAMENT.

$ 1052. Acts of Parliament, the originals of which are preserved in the rolls of Parliament, are divided into classes, to which diffe

rent rules of evidence apply.

VOL II.

А

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