under that Act, or the Elementary Education Act, 1870 (a), it shall lie on the defendant to prove that the child is not of such age. And by sect. 3 of the Betting and Loans (Infants) Act, 1892 (b), where such a document as mentioned in the previous sections is sent to any person at any place of education, and such person is an infant, the person sending, or causing to be sent, the document, shall be deemed to have known that such person was an infant, unless he proves that he had reasonable ground for believing such person to be of full age.

When a plaintiff takes an enquiry as to damages arising from the use of his trade mark by the defendant, the onus of proving some special damage by loss of custom or otherwise rests upon him (c); and in suits to restrain the sale of a patented article, it is incumbent on the plaintiff, not only to prove the sale, but to prove that the article was not made by himself or his agents (d).

In practice the plaintiff generally begins, because, to quote the words of Lord Denman in Mercer v. Whall (e):-" It appears expedient that the judge, the jury, and the defendant himself, should know precisely how the claim is shaped. This disclosure may convince the defendant that the defence which he has pleaded cannot be established. On hearing the extent of the demand, the defendant may be in

(a) 33 & 34 Vict. c. 75.

(b) 55 Vict. c. 4.

(c) Leather Cloth Co. v. Hirschfield, L. R., 1 Eq. 299; 14 W. R. 78.

(d) Betts v. Willmott, L. R., 6 Ch. 239; 19 W. R. 369.

(e) 5 Q. B. 447.

duced at once to submit to it rather than persevere. Thus the affair reaches its natural and best conclusion. If this does not occur, the plaintiff, by bringing forward his case, points his attention to the proper object of the trial, and enables the defendant to meet it with the full understanding of its nature and character."

The strict rule, however, is that—

The party on whom the onus probandi lies, as developed by the record must begin.

But it is considered that the plaintiff must begin in actions of libel, slander, and injuries to the person, and in all other actions in which the plaintiff seeks to recover unliquidated damages, and wherever there are several issues, and the burden of proving any one of them lies on the plaintiff, he is entitled to begin, provided he undertakes to give evidence on such issue. By sub-sect. 7 of sect. 26 of the Patents, Designs and Trade Marks Act, 1883 (f), on the hearing of a petition for the revocation of a patent, the defendant is entitled to begin. Order 36, r. 22 of R. S. C. 1883, that when at the trial the defendant appears and the plaintiff does not, the defendant, if he has no counterclaim, shall be entitled to judgment dismissing the action, applies, even when the burden of proof is on the defendant (g).

(f) 46 & 47 Vict. c. 57.

(g) Armour v. Bate, L. R. (1892), 2 Q. B. 233; 60 L. J., Q. B. 433; 39 W. R. 546.

CHAPTER XIX.

JUDICIAL NOTICE AND THE PROOF OF FOREIGN LAWS.

THE courts take judicial notice of numerous facts, which it is therefore unnecessary to prove. Theoretically all facts which are not judicially noticed must be proved; but there is an increasing tendency on the part of judges to impart into cases heard by them their own general knowledge of matters which occur in daily. life.

They notice all the public statutes of the realm (a); their own course of procedure and practice (b); the maritime law of nations (c); and a war in which the country is engaged, but not a war between foreign countries (d); the great and privy seals (e); royal proclamations; the preamble of an act (f); the signature of the Clerk of Parliaments (g); and now, by the Documentary Evidence Act, 1845 (h), s. 3,

(a) Bull. N. P. 222.

(b) Pugh v. Robinson, 1 T. R. 116.

(e) Chandler v. Grieves, 2 H. Bl. 606, n.

(d) Dolder v. Huntingfield, 11 Ves. 292.

(e) 29 How. St. Tr. 707.

(f) R. v. Sutton, 4 M. & S. 532.

(g) Badische Anilin, §c. v. Levinstein, 4 R. P. C. 470.
(h) 8 & 9 Vict. c. 113.

all copies of royal proclamations, purporting to be printed by the Queen's printer, are made evidence thereof in all courts, without proof being given that such copies were so printed. By the Documentary Evidence Act, 1868 (i), this principle was extended to orders or regulations in council, and to proclamations, orders and regulations issued by any of the government departments or officers specified in the act. This act provides that primâ facie evidence of any such proclamation, order or regulation may be given in any of the modes specified in the act (k). The Documentary Evidence Act, 1882 (7), provides (s. 2) that "where any enactment, whether passed before or after the passing of this act, provides that a copy of any act of parliament, proclamation, order, regulation, rule, warrant, circular, list, gazette or document shall be conclusive evidence, or be evidence, or have any other effect, when purporting to be printed by the government printer or the Queen's printer, or a printer authorized by her Majesty, or otherwise under her Majesty's authority, whatever may be the precise expression used, such copy shall also be conclusive evidence, or evidence, or have the said effect (as the case may be), if it purports to be printed under the superintendence or authority of her Majesty's Stationery Office." This act also provides (s. 4) that "The Documentary Evidence Act, 1868, as amended by this act, shall apply to procla

(i) 31 & 32 Vict. c. 37.

(k) See Huggins v. Ward, 21 W. R. 914.
(1) 45 & 46 Vict. c. 9.

mations, orders, and regulations issued by the Lord Lieutenant, or other chief governor or governors of Ireland, either alone or acting with the advice of the privy council in Ireland, as fully as it applies to proclamations, orders and regulations issued by her Majesty."

By the Documentary Evidence Act, 1845 (s. 1), it is enacted that, whenever by any act then in force or thereafter 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 of any particular in any court of justice, or before any legal tribunal, or either house of parliament, or any committee of either house, or in any judicial proceeding; the same shall be respectively admitted in evidence, provided they respectively purport to be sealed or impressed with a stamp, or sealed and signed, or signed alone, as required, or impressed with a stamp and signed, as directed by the respective acts made or to be hereafter 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 thereof in every case in which the original record could have been received in evidence." And also (sect. 2), "that all courts, judges, justices, masters in Chancery, masters of courts, commissioners judicially acting, and other judicial officers, shall henceforth take judicial notice of the signature