and afterwards of William the Conqueror. This has been always considered a book of the greatest authority; and if a question should at any time arise, whether a manor is ancient demesne, the trial is by inspection of Domesdaybook (1). These volumes have of late years been printed at the expence of government, in consequence of an address from the House of Lords; and the work is said to be executed with the most scrupulous fidelity and correctness (2). Another ancient survey, which ascertains the extent of the king's ports, is also deposited in the Exchequer (3). These surveys are recognised and treated as authentic documents in courts of justice, having been made by the authority and order of the government of the country, on public occasions, and on subjects of public interest.

benefices.

The Valor Beneficiorum, or Pope Nicholas's Taxation, Surveys of is another document of a public nature, and of great au- ecclesiastical thority. In the year 1288, Pope Nicholas the Fourth, to whose predecessors in the see of Rome the first fruits and tenths of all ecclesiastical benefices had for a long time been paid, granted the tenths to King Edward the First for six years, towards defraying the expence of an expedition to the Holy Land; and, that they might be collected to their full value, a taxation by the king's precept was begun in that year, and finished for the province of Canterbury in the year 1291, or the 20th year of the reign of Edward the First; and for that of York in the following year; the whole being under the direction of the Bishops of Winton and Lincoln (4). This taxation of Pope Nicholas is a most important document, because all the taxes, as well those paid to our kings as those to the pope, were regulated by it, till the survey made in the twenty-sixth year of Henry VIII.; and because the statutes of colleges, which were founded before the Reformation, are also interpreted

(1) Hob. 188. Gilb. Ev. 69. (2) First Report of H. of Commons, on Public Records, Appx. A. 1. 2.

(3) Gilb. Ev. 69.

(4) See First Report of H. of Com. mons on the Public Records, p. 15.

by

by this criterion, according to which their benefices under a certain value are exempted from the restriction in the statute of the twenty-first of Henry VIII. concerning pluralities (1). The original is kept in the office of the king's remembrancer in the Exchequer.

A new Valor Beneficiorum was instituted in the twentysixth year of Henry VIII., when the first fruits and tenths of every ecclesiastical promotion were annexed to the revenue of the crown (2). To ascertain their value, ecclesiastical surveys were taken, by virtue of commissions in the king's name issuing under the great scal (3); and these surveys are evidence of their amount at that period. Upon the same principle, surveys of the possessions of religious houses, previous to the dissolution of the monasteries, are received in evidence (4); and these surveys are admissible, although the commissions, under which they were taken, are not to be found. (5)

Surveys of the church and crown lands were taken by commissioners in the time of the commonwealth, under the authority of acts or ordinances of the parliament; and copies of these surveys were deposited in many of the cathedrals. The originals would have been good evidence of the particulars of the surveyed estates, upon the same principle as the other public surveys which have been before mentioned; but as they were destroyed at the time of the great fire in London, the copies have been admitted, as evidence, in the place of the original surveys, provided they have been kept in unsuspected repositories (6). The parliamentary surveys have the credit of being taken with extreme accuracy and minuteness. The circumstance, therefore, of

(1) Humphreys v. Knight, Cro. Car. 455. 2 Lutw. 1305. Stump v. Ayliffe, 2 Gwill. 536.

(2) St. 26 H. 8. c. 3.

(3) Sect. 3 & 10.

(4) Vicar of Kellington v. Trin. Coll. Cambridge, Wils. 170.

I

(5) See (4), and Bagshaw v. Bp. of Bangor, cited in Underhill v. Durham, 2 Gwill. 542.

(6) Underhill v. Durham, 2 Gwill. 542.

these

these surveys being silent as to a supposed modus has been considered to be strong evidence against its existence. (1)

The Journals of the Lords or Commons are evidence of Journals of parliament, their proceedings. Thus, an entry in the Journals of the House of Lords, stating that a judgment below has been reversed, is evidence of the fact of reversal (2); and the Journals have been admitted to prove an address from the House of Lords to the King, and the answer of the King (3). But a resolution of either House is not evidence of the truth of facts there affirmed; and therefore in the case of Titus Oates, who was charged with having committed perjury on the trial of persons suspected of the popish plot, a resolution of parliament, asserting the existence of the plot, was not allowed to be evidence of that fact. (4)

The public acts of government, and acts by the king in Gazettes, his political capacity, are commonly announced in the Gazette, published by the authority of the crown; and of such acts announced to the public in the Gazette, the Gazette is admitted in courts of justice to be good evidence. Proclamations for a public peace, or for the performance of quarantine, and any acts done by or to the king in his regal character, may be proved in this manner (5); and, upon the same principle, articles of war purporting to be printed by the king's printer, are allowed to be evidence of such articles (6). In the last reported case on this subject, a Gazette, in which it was stated, that certain addresses had been presented to the king, was adjudged by the court of King's Bench to be proper evidence, to prove an averment of that fact in an information for a libel (7); for they are addresses, said Lord Kenyon, of different bodies of the king's subjects, received by the king in his public capacity,

(1) 11 East, 284. 1 Maule & Selw. 294.

(2) Jones v. Randall, Cowp. 17. (3) Franklin's case, 9 State Tr. 259, cited by Buller J. 5 T. R. 445.

(4) 4 State Tr, 39.

(5) 5 T. R. 436.443.

(6) R. v. Withers, cited by Buller J. 5 T. R. 446.

(7) R. v. Holt, 5 T. R. 436,

Parish registers.

and they thus become acts of state. Gazettes are not evidence of private titles or private interests, as of a presentation, or of a grant by the king to an individual, which have no reference to the affairs of government; nor is a Gazette evidence to prove an appointment to a commission in the army (1). The Gazette is not evidence, as public notice of a particular fact, more than any other newspaper; unless it is made such by act of parliament, as in the case of bankrupts. An advertisement, therefore, announcing a dissolution of partnership, would not of itself be evidence of that fact, so as to discharge one of the partners from debts subsequently contracted by the rest with a partnership-dealer; but there ought to be some further proof, as, that the dissolution was notorious in the neighbourhood. It is incumbent on persons dissolving a partnership, to send notice of such dissolution to all the persons, with whom they had dealings in partnership (2). However, with respect to such as had not any previous dealings with the partnership, such an advertisement is, of itself, without any additional proof, evidence for the jury, upon which they are to determine, whether it is probable, that the dealer knew of the dissolution. (3)

Parish registers are evidence of births, marriages, and burials. The keeping of registers, for entries of births and christenings, commenced in the thirtieth year of the reign of Henry VIII., and was afterwards enforced by injunctions from Edward VI., and from Elizabeth (4); and the marriage act (5), after directing registers to be kept as public books in every parish, for the purpose of registering marriages, enacts, that "immediately after the celebration of every marriage, an entry thereof shall be made in such register; in which entry or register it shall be expressed, that the marriage was celebrated by banns or licence; and

if both or either of the parties married by licence be under age, with consent of the parents or guardians, as the case shall be; and shall be signed by the minister with his proper addition, and also by the parties married, and attested by two credible witnesses." By the canons of 1603 (1), copies of parish registers in every diocese ought to be regularly transmitted once in every year to the diocesan or his chancellor; a regulation extremely important, for the purpose of guarding the evidences of title and pedigree, but which has been so generally neglected, as to make it necessary for the legislature to interpose, and pass an act for their better preservation. It is by this statute enacted (2), that copies of the register books, verified by the officiating minister of the parish, shall be transmitted annually by the churchwardens, after they or one of them shall have signed the same, to the registrars of the diocese within which the church is situated.

An entry of marriage in the parish register, made in the form prescribed by the act of parliament, is evidence, that the persons therein named were married, on the day specified, by banns or licence, as the case may be. Such an entry is not essential to the validity of a marriage; so that, if it has not been expressed in the regular form, the only consequence will be, that it cannot be admitted as evidence of the marriage, which must, therefore, be established by some other medium of proof. In order to prove, that the parties described in the register are the same parties, whose marriage is in question, it must obviously be unnecessary to call either of the subscribing witnesses to the register; any evidence, which satisfies the jury concerning their iden tity, must be sufficient; as, by proof of the similarity of their hand-writing, or that the bell-ringers were paid by them for ringing after the marriage, or by proof of other circumstances to ascertain the persons. (3)

(1) Can. 70. Gibson's Codex, p. 204. (2) Stat. 52 G. 3. c. 146. s. 7.

(3) Bull. N. P. 27.

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