THE LAW OF EVIDENCE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1160, 3 April 1884, Page 3

THE LAW OF EVIDENCE.

One of the anomalies of the English law of evidence was well illustrated by the ' simple story of the sea ' which Mr Chamberlain related the other evening. The inquiry into the circumstances of the lofs of the vessel in question, which took place before the Wreck Commissioner in 1880, fully revealed the flagrant nature of the case. It was clear in the evidence that the vessel foundered through being overladen and undermanned, and that her owner was responsible for her unseaworthiness in these respeots. In the Wreck Commission! r's Court, where proceedings are more or informal, the captain's letter asking ' why should my wife be made a widow in order that another man may handle a little coin' was admissable. The Wreck Commissioner condemned the owner in £250 nomine oxpensantrit,, and the Board of Trade instituted criminal proceedings against him under the provisions of the Act of 1870, which made it a misdemeanour to send an unseaworthy ship to sea. At the trial the law of evidence precluded the prosecution from putting in the optain's letter or from proving that the vessel had been habitually overloaded and overinstned, and the Judge who presided seemed to consider that as the , Board of Trade officer had no

complaint as to the insufficiency of the free board, the fact of its being grossly insufficient was in itself immaterial. In the end the jury acquitted.