substantive quality. Sir Dudley Ryder, (then Attorney-General,
afterwards Chief-Justice,) in his learned argument, observed, that "it
is extremely proper that there should be _some_ general rules in
relation to evidence; but _if exceptions were not allowed to them, it
would be better to demolish all the general rules_. There is no general
rule without exception that we know of but this,--that _the best
evidence shall be admitted which the nature of the case will afford_. I
will show that rules as general as this are broke in upon _for the sake
of allowing evidence_. There is no rule that seems more binding than
that a man shall not be admitted an evidence in his own case, and yet
the Statute of Hue and Cry is an exception. A man's books are allowed
to be evidence, or, which is in substance the same, his servant's books,
_because the nature of the case requires it_,--as in the case of a
brewer's servants. Another general rule, that a wife cannot be witness
against her husband, has been broke in upon in cases of treason. Another
exception to the general rule, that a man may not be examined without
oath,--the last words of a dying man are given in evidence in the case
of murder." Such are the doctrines of this great lawyer.

Chief-Justice Willes concurs with Lord Hardwicke as to dispensing with
strict rules of evidence. "Such evidence," [he says,] "is to be admitted
as the _necessity_ of the case will allow of: as, for instance, a
marriage at Utrecht, certified under the seal of the minister there, and
of the said town, and that they cohabited together as man and wife, was
held to be sufficient proof that they were married." This learned judge
(commenting upon Lord Coke's doctrine, and Serjeant Hawkins's after him,
that the oaths of Jews and pagans were not to be taken) says, "that this
notion, though advanced by so great a man, is contrary to religion,
common sense, and common humanity, and I think the devils, to whom he
has delivered them, could not have suggested anything worse."