SERCOMBE SMITH J

Mr. Koek sought to put in an evidence of the Law and Custom of Chinese as to adoption three productions, viz.:-

(1) "The Family Law of the Chinese" by P.G. von Mollendorff, printed at Shanghai by Kelly & Walsh, Limited.

(2) "Notes on the Family Law and Usages and on the "Criminal Code of the Chinese," edited by George Thomson Hare CMG, Civil Service, Straits Settlements and Federated Malay States, published by authority and printed at the Selangor Government Printing Office, Kuala Lumpur.

(3) Varieties sinologiques No. 14; Le Mariage Chinois, au point de vue legal, par Le P. Pierre Hoang Chang-Hai; Imprinerie de la Mission Catholique.

Various sections of the Evidence Ordinance 1893 were referred to as those under which these productions were admissible.

Section 60 enacts that: "Oral evidence must in all cases "whatever be direct; that is to say:- (d) if it refers to an opinion or to the grounds on which that opinion is held it must be the evidence of the person who holds that opinion on those grounds. Provided that the opinion of experts expressed in any treatise commonly offered for sale and the grounds on which such opinions are held may be proved