human
If there be any [material] blemish, by razure or interlineation, in a deed, it ought to be proved, though it were above thirty years old, by the witnesses if living, and if dead, by proving the handwriting of at least one of the witnesses, and also the hand of the party, _in order to encounter the presumption arising from the blemishes in the deed_. Such, also, is the law laid down in Lord Chief Baron Gilbert's Treatise on Evidence, (p. 89,) and the proposition appears adopted, and these two high authorities cited, in the last edition, (the ninth,) of that celebrated standard text-book, PHILLIPS _on Evidence_, p. 205, published since the former edition of this work. There is an impression, however, that this strict rule would not _now_ be acted upon; on the ground that the presumption resulting from a continued possession, in conformity with the effect of a deed with erasure or interlineation, is strong enough to overcome the presumption of forgery afforded by the alterations themselves. Still it is possible to foresee great danger arising out of the adoption of such a rule: for a man enjoying an estate in lands, less than one of fee simple, may alter the deed so as to give to himself that superior estate, and then, after a lapse of thirty years, produce the deed so altered, and thereby defeat the innocent party challenging his title to the property. Possibly it would now be submitted as a question for a jury to decide, _whether the alteration had been made previously or subsequently to the delivery of the deed?_ for if _previously_, the deed remains valid and binding. A deed thirty years old is called
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and is said to
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--_i. e._ to require no proof of its execution, provided it shall have been produced from a custody which may be reasonably and naturally explained, even though not the strictly proper legal custody.--See the late case of Doe _d._ Neale _v._ Sampler, 8 _Adolphus and Ellis' Rep._ 151; and Doe _d._ Wildgoose _v._ Pearce, 2 _Moody and Robinson_, 240. As to the point made by the Attorney-General, at the trial, that where the right is once vested--_i. e._ the instant after the execution of the deed--_such execution_ creating a title to the land in question--that right and title cannot be affected by any subsequent alteration of the deed;--it has been affirmed to be good law in a recent solemn decision of the Court of Exchequer, and confirmed in a Court of Error.--_See Davidson_ v. _Cooper_, 11 Meeson _v._ Welsley, 799-800.
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The moment after the execution of the deed, it has become valueless, said Lord Abinger,