OF ARTS AND SCIENCES. 33 



judicial trials, than would be likely to be done by any proposed reform 

 which they were asked to inaugurate, it might perhaps lead the Acad- 

 emy to believe that the public mind is not yet sufficiently awakened to 

 the importance of providing a remedy for an existing crying evil, and 

 thereby stimulate them to a still further effort to convince others of the 

 necessity of some action in the premises. 



As things stand, they ought not to let the matter rest in silence. 

 The mischief at which they aim is becoming more glaring every year, 

 and public attention in various quarters is being called to it in a sig- 

 nificant manner, both in England and our own country. Nor is it wise 

 to suffer this interest to subside, until some remedy has been devised, 

 or is found impracticable. 



Had the Committee on the Judiciary seen fit to favor the Academy 

 with their views upon the matter, it might have aided its members in 

 forming a judgment as to the course they ought to pursue. In the 

 absence of these, however, your Committee have thought proper to 

 accompany their report by the draft of the bill before mentioned, that, 

 if the Academy should hereafter see fit to take any further action upon 

 the matter, it might serve, by way of suggestion, to point out the 

 objects which are aimed at by them. 



In conclusion, your Committee cannot but express a hope that the 

 attempt to interest the Legislature in the subject now under consider- 

 ation, which has been twice repeated, will be renewed and reiterated 

 till associations as numerous and respectable as those who have here 

 undertaken to speak in behalf of the cause of science and truth, in 

 which they have a personal but no pecuniary interest, may hope to 

 obtain a response from those to whom their appeal is addressed, which 

 will sustain them in their endeavors to accomplish a public benefit, or 

 show wherein they are mistaken in what the public needs. Nor are 

 they willing to doubt that, in due time, a community so ready as ours 

 is to boast of its schools, its colleges, and its institutes of science, will 

 devise some way by which, in the investigations of scientific truths in 

 judicial trials, the value, together with the honor and dignity, of 

 science, as well as truth, may be vindicated and sustained. 



An Act concerning the Testimony of Experts. 



Be it enacted, Sfc, as follows: 



Section 1. Whenever the District Attorney of any district in the 

 Commonwealth, or the Attorney- General, shall be informed of the death 

 of any person in such district, and that there is reasonable cause to sus- 

 pect that the same is a case of homicide, and he shall be of opinion that 



VOL. I. 5 



