"[60]
It is a known rule of evidence, that an interest in the matter to be
supported by testimony disqualifies a witness; yet Lord Mansfield held,
"that _nice_ objections to a remote interest which could not be paid or
released, though they held in other cases, were not allowed to
disqualify a witness to a will, as parishioners might have [prove?] a
devise to the use of the poor of the parish forever." He went still
nearer, and his doctrine tends so fully to settle the principles of
departure from or adherence to rules of evidence, that your Committee
inserts part of the argument at large. "The disability of a witness from
interest is very different from a positive incapacity. If a deed must be
acknowledged before a judge or notary public, every other person is
under a positive incapacity to authenticate it; but objections of
interest are deductions from natural reason, and proceed upon a
presumption of too great a bias in the mind of the witness, and the
public utility of rejecting partial testimony. Presumptions stand no
longer than till the contrary is proved. The presumption of bias may be
taken off by showing the witness has a [as?] great or a greater
interest the other way, or that he has given it up. The presumption of
public utility may be answered by showing that it would be very
inconvenient, under the particular circumstances, not to receive such
testimony.
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