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. Therefore, from the course of business, necessity, and other reasons of expedience, _numberless exceptions_ are allowed to the _general_ rule."[61]