Wilhs: Anglo-American Law 
43 
cedure a game. A client wins or loses according as his 
attorney outplays or fails to outplay his opponent, just as the 
client in wager of battle lost or won according to the prowess 
or lack of prowess of his champion. Equity pleading is the 
system which prevailed in England in the High Court of 
Chancery and which obtains in this country for the conduct 
of equity cases in the federal courts and in those states 
where the distinction between common law and equity juris- 
dictions is still preserved. Its fundamental principles were 
derived from the Roman law. 
be Evidence. The term “evidence” represents: 
Any knowable fact or group of facts,, not a legal or a logical prin- 
ciple, considered with a view to its being offered before a legal tribunal 
for the purpose of producing a persuasion, positive or negative, on the 
part of the tribunal, as to the truth of a proposition, not of law or of 
logic, on which the determination of the tribunal is to be asked.' 
WlGMORE. 
Evidence, in legal acceptation, includes all the means by which any 
alleged matter of fact, the truth of which is submitted to investigation, 
is established or disproved. Evidence is the information given by the 
respective parties to the tribunal before which the cause is tried upon 
which to base its decision upon the issues, or disputed matters of fact. 
Green leaf. 
Such information may consist either of the statements of 
witnesses as to matters of fact which they have observed by 
means of their senses, or documents produced and read in 
evidence after they have been proved in accordance with the 
rules of evidence, or observations made by the tribunal as to 
the existence and conditions of things submitted to its inspec- 
tion. Proof is the result of evidence. Evidence is the means of 
proof. Testimony is the evidence given by living witnesses. Di- 
rect evidence is that which tends to prove a fact without the aid 
of inference. Circumstantial evidence is that which tends to 
prove a fact as a logical inference from the proof of other 
facts. Evidence is incompetent when it is not the best evi- 
dence, that is, when it shows on its face that there is a higher 
grade of evidence whose production has not been excused. 
Evidence is irrelevant when it does not bear on the point in 
issue. Evidence is immaterial when it would have no effect 
if introduced. 
c. Practice. Practice includes all the other steps in legal 
procedure not included in pleading and evidence. In primitive 
