This is in no sense a law book. The general reader cares little for lawyers and their dry rules of law, or the prosaic forms of practice and procedure in our courts. Everybody, however, is interested in the drama of a great trial, where the property, reputation, liberty, or life of a human being is often at stake. This has been strikingly exemplified recently by the great interest taken in the trial of Madame Steinheil in France, accounts of which were published in all the leading newspapers of the world.
All our leading newspapers, nowadays, publish detailed accounts of every occurrence of general interest long before such matters reach the stage of litigation, and the whole reading public thereby becomes a jury to weigh each step of the evidence and render their verdict upon its truth or falsity. That this is true even of quasi-scientific questions was well illustrated by the intense public interest in the newspaper controversy as to Dr. Cook's alleged discovery of the North Pole, or his ascent of Mt. McKinley.
The general public, therefore, should naturally be interested in the correct methods of sifting out the truth of any controversy or disputed question of fact, in which they may for any reason become interested.
