person, directing him to make such investigation and to report thereon to the court. In all such cases, unless otherwise directed by the order of appointment, the commissioner shall have power to examine any witnesses who may be produced to him by the parties, or any of them, the parties themselves and any other persons whom he may think proper to call upon to give evidence in the matters referred to him, and also to call for and examine documents and other papers relevant to the subject of inquiry; and persons not attending on the requisition of the commissioner, or refusing to give their testimony, or to produce any documents or other papers, shall be subject to the like disadvantages, penalties and punishments by order of the court on the report of the commissioner as they would incur for the same offences in suits tried before the court. The commissioner, after such local inspection as he may deem necessary, and after reducing to writing, in the manner hereinbefore prescribed for taking the deposition of witnesses in the presence of the judge, the depositions taken by him, shall return the depositions together with his report in writing subscribed with his name to the court. The report and depositions shall be taken as evidence in the suit, and shall form part of the record, but it shall be competent to the court, or to the parties to the suit or any of them, with the permission of the court, to examine the commissioner personally in open court touching any of the matters referred to him, or mentioned in his report, or the manner in which he may have conducted the investigation."

CHAPTER IV.

ON PUBLIC NON-JUDICIAL WRITINGS.

PUBLIC writings, which are not of a judicial character, are evidence of the matters which they purport to declare; provided they appear to have been obtained from proper custody, i. e., from a place where it is reasonable to presume that they would be deposited, if authentic.

The question of proper custody under this head applies more exclusively to the case of such ancient documents as were considered incidentally in the ninth and tenth chapters of this work; and it will be sufficient to refer to those chapters for the principles which regulate the admissibility and effect of ancient charters, grants, terriers, inquisitions, or surveys. On the general question as to what constitutes a proper place of custody, see supra, p. 139.

The proof of public non-judicial documents is now chiefly regulated by the Law of Evidence Amendment Act (14 & 15 Vict. c. 99, s. 14), which enacts, that "whenever any book or other document is of such a public nature as to be admissible in evidence on its mere production from the proper custody, and no statute exists which renders its contents provable by a copy; any copy thereof, or extract therefrom, shall be admissible in evidence in any court of justice, or

before any person now or hereafter having by law or consent of parties authority to hear, receive, and examine evidence, provided it be proved to be an examined copy or extract, or provided it purport to be signed and certified as a true copy or extract by the officer to whose custody the original is entrusted; and which officer is hereby required to furnish such certified copy or extract to any person applying at a reasonable time for the same, upon payment of a reasonable sum for the same, not exceeding fourpence for every folio of ninety words."

On this section it has been decided that an unstamped copy of an act-book of the Ecclesiastical Court is evidence of probate to prove executorship (a). So the journals of the House of Lords, entries in the books of tax collectors, commissioners of the excise or customs, secretaries of state, municipal or parliamentary electors, which were provable before the act by examined copies, may now be proved either by examined or certified copies under the act. So charters, letters-patent, grants from the Crown, pardons, and commissions, may be proved either by originals, or examined or certified copies; or also, as it seems, by exemplifications under the great seal. As to the journals of the Houses of Parliament and royal proclamations, see supra, p. 379. As to proclamations, treaties, &c., of foreign states or colonies, supra, p. 369.

The 14 & 15 Vict. c. 19, s. 14, cited above, has virtually superseded the 8 & 9 Vict. c. 113, s. 1 (the Documentary Evidence Act), as far as it refers to

(a) Dorrett v. Meux, 15 C. B. 142.

public documents: but, as the two acts are construed cumulatively, and as the earlier act extends to some private documents, it is subjoined.

8 & 9 Vict. c. 113, s. 1.

"Whenever by any act now in force, or hereafter to be in force, any certificate, official or public document, or document or proceeding of any corporation or joint-stock or other company, or any certified copy of any document, bye-law, entry in any register, or other book, or of any other proceeding, shall be receivable in evidence in any judicial proceeding, the same shall respectively be admitted in evidence, provided they purport to be sealed or impressed with a stamp, or sealed or signed alone, as required, or impressed with a stamp and signed as directed by the acts made or hereafter to be made, without any proof of the seal or stamp, where a seal or stamp is necessary, or of the signature, or of the official character of the person appearing to have signed the same, and without any further proof, in every case in which the original record would have been received in evidence."

The effect of these enactments, as to documents of a public nature, is to allow the substitution of certified or examined copies in all cases in which the original, if produced, would be evidence.

Whenever, therefore, it is proposed to tender an examined or certified copy of a public document in the place of an original, the practical question is, whether the original is such a public document as is intrinsically evidence per se. Documents of a private

nature will be subject to a different test. These will be considered subsequently.

The more important and practical description of public documents will now be considered. First:

REGISTERS.

"Parish registers are in the nature of records, and need not be produced, or proved by subscribing witnesses" (b). They are therefore provable under the 14 & 15 Vict. c. 19, s. 14, by copies purporting to be signed by the incumbents of the parishes (c).

But it should appear that the original is in the proper custody, which, in the case of marriage, baptismal, and death registers, is with the incumbent, and not the parish clerk (d). But the register, or the copy in such a case, is only proof of the fact of a marriage, or a birth, or a death, of a person or persons therein named; and it is no evidence of the identity of a party. This must be shown extrinsically as in the case of a marriage, either by proving the handwriting of the parties, or by calling a witness who was present at the marriage (e); but the handwriting may be spoken to without producing the register (f).

By the 52 Geo. 3, c. 146, verified copies of all registers of baptisms and burials are to be sent yearly by all ministers to the registrar of their diocese; and by the 6 & 7 Will. 4, c. 86, s. 38, "the Registrar

(b) Per Lord Mansfield, C. J., Birt v. Barlow, Doug. 172. (c) Re Neddy Hall's Estate, 9 Hare, App. xvi.

(d) Doe v. Fowler, 19 L. J. Q. B. 151.

(e) Birt v. Barlow, Doug. 272.

(f) Sayer v. Glossop, 2 Exch. 409.