LAW OF EVIDENCE 601
report what has been related to him, but it is never the less apparent that the real truth of the original statement cannot under such circumstances be tested. The originator of the report is not subjected to an oath or to Cross Examination Non Constat but he may have spoken idly or jocularly ; and he would be unwilling to repeat on oath what he had not hesitated to narrate in ordinary conversation. Non constat that he might not have wilfully fabricated a story or been the dupe of some one still farther hid behind the scences or that though perfectly veracious as to intention, he might have been the victim of his faulty impressions or unreten-tative memory ; and so have utterly broken down, if only exposed to the test of Cross Examination. Therefore the law determines that such evidence shall not be receivable; that if it is important to the party calling A, to establish the facts which A has heard from B, B himself shall be produced, make his own statement in Court, be subjected to the two tests of oath and Cross Examination and the scarcely less terrible detector of inaccurate or fallacious evidence, the observation to which a Judge, experienced in forensix practice, and skilled in the knowledge of human nature, subjects the demeanour, the department, the manner, of every witness who comes before him.
§ Does the rule of Exclusion apply to all Hearsay Evidence ?
Hearsay is the statement of a person who is not a witness in the Court and which is sought to be tendered as evidence through another person who comes as a witness.
The question is, does the rule of exclusion apply to all statements of a person who is not a witness in Court.
To understand this question it is necessary to realise that a statement when tendered in evidence wears two different aspects. A statement is a fact and it is also the statement of a fact.
Illus—
When A gives Evidence that B said this or that
(i) taken as a fact the question is did say so or did he Not
(ii) taken as a statement of a fact the question is Is what said false or true.