Everlasting-flowers, a name applied to certain plants which, when dried, suffer little change in their appearance. The plants to which this name is peculiarly applied belong to the genus Helichrysum, but it is also given to members of allied genera, such as Antennaria or Gnaphalium.
Everlasting-pea, a popular name for Lathyrus latifolius, cultivated in flower-gardens, and belonging to the same genus as the sweet-pea.
Eversion of the Eyelids (Ectropion), is a turning outward of the eyelids, and it may be congenital or acquired. The latter follows severe infection of the hair-follicles of the eyelashes.
Evesham (ēvz´am), a town in England, in the county and 15 miles S.E. of Worcester, beautifully situated on the Avon, and giving name to a parliamentary division of the county. It was the seat of a monastery as early as the eighth century. Simon de Montfort was defeated by the Royal troops at Evesham on 4th Aug., 1265. Pop. 8685.
Eviction, the dispossession of a person from the occupancy of lands or tenements. The term occurs most commonly in connection with the proceedings by which a landlord ejects his tenant for non-payment of rent or on determination of the tenancy. In the case of eviction of tenants in Ireland, generally for non-payment of rent, the tenants are frequently readmitted as care-takers, or under some other title. The Rent Restrictions Act, 1920, operative until 1923, severely curtails a landlord's common law rights to recover possession of certain premises at the time when, but for the Act, the tenancy would expire.
Evidence is that which makes evident, which enables the mind to see truth. It may be (a) intuitive, i.e. resting on the direct testimony of consciousness, of perception or memory, or on fundamental principles of the human intellect; or it may be (b) demonstrative, i.e. in a strict sense, proofs which establish with certainty as in mathematical science certain conclusions; or it may be (c) probable, under which class are ranked moral evidence, legal evidence, and generally every kind of evidence which, though it may be sufficient to satisfy the mind, is not an absolutely certain and incontrovertible demonstration.
In jurisprudence evidence is classified into that which is direct and positive and that which is presumptive and circumstantial. The former is that which is proved by some writing containing a positive statement of the facts and binding the party whom it affects; or that which is proved by some witness, who has, and avers himself to have, positive knowledge thereof by means of his senses. Whenever the fact is not so directly and positively established, but is deduced from other facts in evidence, it is presumptive and circumstantial only. The following are the leading rules regarding evidence in a court of law:
(1) The point in issue is to be proved by the party who asserts the affirmative. But where one person charges another with a culpable omission this rule will not apply, the person who makes the charge being bound to prove it. (2) The best evidence must be given of which the nature of the thing is capable. (3) Hearsay evidence of a fact is not admissible. The principal exceptions to this rule are—death-bed declarations, evidence in questions of pedigree, public right, custom boundaries, declarations against interest, declarations which accompany the facts or are part of the res gestæ, &c. (4) Insane persons and idiots are incompetent to be witnesses. But persons temporarily insane are in their lucid intervals received as witnesses. Children are admissible as witnesses as soon as they have a competent share of understanding and know and feel the nature of an oath and of the obligation to speak the truth.—Bibliography: Sir J. F. Stephen, Digest of the Law of Evidence; W. M. Best, Law of Evidence.
Evidences of Christianity. These may be divided broadly into two great classes, viz. external evidences, or the body of historical testimonies to the Christian revelation; and internal evidences, or arguments drawn from the nature of Christianity itself as exhibited in its teachings and effects, in favour of its divine origin. The first Christian apologies—those of Justin Martyr, Minucius Felix, and Tertullian, written in the second century—were mainly intended as justifications of the Christian religion against the charges of atheism and immorality commonly made at that time. Of a more philosophical kind, and dealing more comprehensively with the principles of religion and belief in general, are the works of Origen, Arnobius, and Augustine in the centuries immediately succeeding. During the Middle Ages, the scientific representation of Christianity is mostly the work of the schoolmen occupied in welding Aristotelian or Platonic philosophy with the fabric of Christian dogmatics, or writing attacks on the Jewish and Mohammedan faiths.