Admissions before trial. In order to save expense and facilitate proceedings, it is now usual and right for each party, previous to trial, to call on the opposite party to make various admissions, by which the party so admitting cannot be prejudiced, and to which therefore he cannot reasonably object. These admissions are now regulated and required by the Common Law Procedure Act, 1852 (0), which enacts that "Either party may call on the other party by notice to admit any document, saving all just exceptions ; and, in case of refusal or neglect to admit, the costs of proving the document shall be paid by the party so neglecting or refusing, whatever the result of the cause may be; unless at the trial the judge shall certify that the refusal to admit was reasonable; and no costs of proving any document shall be allowed unless such notice be given, except in cases where the omission to give the notice is, in the opinion of the master, a saving of expense:" (s. 117.) "An affidavit of the attorney in the cause, or his clerk, of the due signature of any admissions made in pursuance of such notice, and annexed to the affidavit, shall be, in all cases, sufficient evidence of such admissions:" (s. 118.) "An affidavit of the attorney in the cause, or his clerk, of the service of any notice to produce, in respect of which notice to admit shall have been given, and of the time when it was served, with a copy of such notice (o) 15 & 16 Vict. c. 76. to produce annexed to such affidavit, shall be sufficient evidence of the service of the original of such notice, and of the time when it was served:" (s. 119.) The form of notice to admit, under the 117th section, cited above, is regulated by the 29th rule of Hilary Term, 1853. Notice to admit must be given even when the genuineness of the document itself is in issue, and although the opposite party have intimated that the admission will not be made (p). Where the judge granted a certificate that the refusal to admit was reasonable, four months after the trial and after taxation of the costs the Court refused to set it aside (q). The form of admission under the above statute and rules is the same as that which was previously in force under the now repealed rules of Hilary Term, 4 Will. 4. Various decisions under these rules have established the principle, that a party, by admitting a document, does not thereby in any way recognize its legal validity, but merely enables the opposite party to dispense with the usual evidence which would otherwise be necessary to bring it before the court. Thus, when a party admitted his signature to a bill of exchange, he was still allowed to object to the insufficiency of the stamp (r). And an admission on notice of certain documents which were described as copies of, or extracts from, certain original documents, was held not to make such copies evidence, in the absence of sufficient reason for the nonproduction of the ori (p) Spencer v. Barrough, 9 M. & W. 425. ginals (s). But an admission of a bill of exchange drawn by the plaintiff, directed to the defendants, "and accepted by one H. B. for the defendant," has been held to estop the defendants from disputing H. B.'s authority to accept (t). So it has been held that, after admission of a deed, no objection can be taken to an erasure or interlineation which may afterwards appear. In such a case, where the defendant objected at trial to an unexplained interlineation which had been admitted without objection, Coleridge, J., said:"Before a party admits a deed it is produced to him for the very purpose of enabling him to inspect it, and say whether he objects to its admission in the form in which it appears to be written. Here it must be considered, either that the defendant really admitted that the deed was correct, and the interlineation no objection, or that the admission was made with the dishonest intention of entrapping the plaintiff; and as it must be presumed that the defendant acted upon the inspection of the deed upon which he had a right to act, I think the objection has been waived under the notice to admit” (u). Where there is a variance in date between the document admitted and that which is produced, it will be immaterial, unless the opposite party have been misled by it (x); but it ought to be shown that the document admitted and that produced are the same (y). (s) Sharpe v. Lambe, 11 A. & E. 805. The Courts will not sanction any agreement for an admission by which any of the known principles of law are evaded. No effect, therefore, will be given to an agreement to waive an objection arising from a deed not having been stamped (z). The admission of documents before trial in the courts of Chancery, is regulated by "The Chancery Amendment Act, 1858," (a); the 7th section is iu substantially the same terms as the 117th section of the "Common Law Procedure Act, 1852." (z) Owen v. Thomas, 3 M. & K.357. (a) 21 & 22 Vict. c. 27. CHAPTER XVII. ON CONFESSIONS. As in civil controversies the admissions of parties are received against their makers, so in criminal trials the confession of a prisoner is held to be evidence against him of a high nature. But since a person charged with a crime may be induced by his situation either to criminate himself untruly, under the influence of excitement and terror, or trusting to a promise of forgiveness by a prosecutor, or other person who may be presumed to have a power of pardoning; it has long been the policy of the criminal law to reject evidence of every confession or statement by a prisoner, which has been made under the pressure of any species of physical or moral duress. Whenever, therefore, at a criminal trial, there appears to be ground of reasonable suspicion that a confession of guilt has been elicited from a prisoner by a threat of punishment, in the event of a refusal to confess, or by a promise of forgiveness, on condition of confessing, the court will inquire strictly into the antecedent circumstances of the statement which is to be tendered and will not receive it unless it appear to have been the free and voluntary declaration of the prisoner. The rule, as now recognized, is the following: The statement of a prisoner as to the circum |