hop-binds growing on poles in plantations of hops the 27th Geo. 2nd, cap. 19, against maliciously destroying any bank, mill, engine, flood-gate, or sluice, erected for draining and preserving the North Level (part of Bedford Level) and adjoining lands and the 3rd Geo. 3rd, cap. 16, against knowingly and willingly personating or falsely assuming the name and character of persons entitled, or supposed to be entitled, to any outpension, or allowance of money, from the commissioners or governors of the royal hospital for seamen at Greenwich, in order to receive the money due, or supposed to be due, on such out-pension" were repealed, so far as they deprived persons convicted under them of the benefit of clergy; and, in lieu of the capital punishment, it was enacted that persons so convicted, "should be liable, at the discretion of the Court, to be transported beyond the seas for life, or for any term not less than seven years, or to be imprisoned only, or to be imprisoned and kept to hard labour in the common gaol or house of correction, for any term not exceeding seven years." The same act also took away the penalty of death inflicted by the 4th Geo. 3rd, cap. 37, against "stealing, cutting, and destroying linen yarn, linen cloth, or manufactures of linen yarn, and the looms, tools, and implements used therein-by the 22nd Geo. 3rd, cap. 40, against destroying woollen, silk, linen, and cotton manufactures, and the tools, tackle, and utensils used therein;"-and by the 28th Geo. 3rd, cap. 55, against cutting and destroying frame-work-knitted pieces, stockings, and other like articles, and breaking, destroying, and damaging frames, machines,

engines, tools, instruments, and utensils used in the same manufacture and machinery and it enacted, in like manner, that persons convicted under any of these three laws should be liable, at the discretion of the Court, to be transported beyond the seas for life, or for any term not less than seven years, or to be imprisoned only, or to be imprisoned and kept to hard labour in the common gaol or house of correction, for any term not exceeding seven years.

Another law restored the benefit of clergy to the offences included within the following acts

the 22nd Car. 2nd, c. 5, against stealing cloth from the rack, and stealing or embezzling the king's ammunition and stores-the 10th and 11th Wil. 3rd, c. 23 (as altered by 1st Geo. 4th, c. 117), against burglary, house-breaking, or robbery, in shops, warehouses, coachhouses, and horse-stealing; and the 24th Geo. 2nd, cap. 45, against robberies and thefts upon navigable rivers, ports of entry or discharge, wharfs and quays adjacent. Adopting, instead of death, the same species and degrees of punishment as were had recourse to in the previous innovation, it enacted, that every person-who should be lawfully convicted of cutting, taking, stealing, or carrying away any cloth or other woollen manufactures, from the rack or tenters in the night-time; or of stealing or embezzling his majesty's ammunition, sails, cordage, or naval or military stores; or of privately stealing any goods or chattels in any shop, warehouse, coach-house, or stable; or of stealing any goods wares, or merchandise in any ship,

barge, lighter, boat, or other vessel or craft, upon any navigable river or canal, or in any port of entry or discharge, or in any creek belonging to any such river, canal, or port, or from any dock, wharf, or quay adjacent to any such river, canal, or port; or of procuring, counselling, aiding, or abetting any such offender-should be liable, at the discretion of the Court, to be transported beyond the seas for life, or for any term not less than seven years, or to be imprisoned only, or to be imprisoned and kept to hard labour in the common gaol or house of correction, for any term not exceeding seven years."

The custom of pronouncing sentence of death upon great numbers, upon whom, from the circumstances attending their crimes, there was scarcely a chance that it would be actually inflicted, was rightly deemed to be an imperfection in our system: since it much diminished the solemnity of a proceeding so awful as that of passing final doom upon a fellow creature ought ever to be. To remedy this evil, a law was passed,* which enacted, that whenever any person shall be convicted of any felony except murer, as shall by law be excluded the benefit of clergy in respect thereof, and the Court shall be of opinion that, under the particular circumstances of the case, the offender is a fit object of the royal mercy, the Court may, if it shall think fit, direct the proper officer to ask, "whether such offender hath any thing to say, why judgment of death should not be recorded against him;" that if the offender shall allege nothing sufficient in law to arrest or bar such judgment, the Court is autho

4. Geo, 4th c. 48: passed July 4th.

rised to abstain from pronouncing judgment of death, and, instead thereof, to order such judgment to be entered, which accordingly shall be entered of record in the usual form, and in the same manner as if judgment of death had actually been pronounced in open Court; and that such record shall have the like effect, and be followed by all the same consequences, "as if such judgment had actually been pronounced in open Court, and the offender had been reprieved by the Court."

*

The mode of interment, which a long-continued custom had caused (though unsupported by express authority) to be regarded as law, was in many respects revolting to every natural feeling. To remove this stain from our national usages, a law was passed, which enacted that, for the future, it should not be lawful for any coroner, or other officer having authority to hold inquests, to issue any warrant or other process directing the remains of persons, against whom a finding of felo de se should have been had, to be interred in any public highway; but that such coroner or other officer should give directions for the private interment of the remains of such person felo de se (without any stake being driven through the body of such person) in the church-yard or other burialground of the parish or place, in which the remains of such person might, by the laws or customs of England, be interred, if the verdict of felo de se had not been found against him; such interment to be made within 24 hours from the finding of the inquisition, and to take place between the hours of nine and twelve at night.--The

* 4, Geo. 4th. c, 52: passed July 8.

act, however, gave no authority for performing any of the rights of Christian burial on such interment; and contained a salvo of the laws and usages relating to the burial of such persons, in all other respects than those which we have mentioned.

*

In consequence of petitions from the merchants of London and of Liverpool, a committee was appointed to take into consideration the state of the law between principal and agent. Upon this report, a bill was passed, enacting, that persons entrusted with goods for the purposes of sale, and in whose names such goods were shipped, either by themselves or by others, should be deemed the true owners thereof, so far as to entitle the consignees of the goods to a lien thereon in respect of advances made by them, without notice, to the apparent shippers, in like manner as if the latter had been the real owners.

The numerous formalities, required for the celebration of marriage by the law of the preceding year, had excited much clamour, especially among the lower classes of people: and the effect of that, which had been intended merely as a preventive of clandestine and improper matrimonial connexions, had produced a great diminution in the annual number of marriages. In the very beginning of the present session, the evil was removed for the time, by repealing nearly all the provisions of the late act; and a committee of the lords was appointed to frame a permanent bill on this important subject. A bill, founded on the report of that committee, was introduced by the archbishop of Canterbury.

4 Geo. 4th, c. 83. ↑ 4 Geo. 4th, c. 76.

One

clause in it provided, that the marriage of a minor by licence, without the consent of the parent or guardian, should be voidable by suit, instituted by proper parties within twelve months from its solemnization. This clause was vehemently opposed by the archbishop of York, the bishop of Chester, and lord Ellenborougb. One objection was, that the precaution might be defeated either by going to Scotland or the continent, or by marrying by bans: but the principal topie of argument was of a religious nature. To make marriage voidable was, they contended, contrary to the Christian code. The divine legislator directed, that "a man shall leave father and mother, and cleave unto his wife, and they twain shall be one flesh." He had said also, "what God hath joined together, let not man put asunder:" and had ordained, that wives should not be put away, save for adultery. Taking these texts together, it was obvious that the law of man ought to be made agreeable to the expressed law of God. Marriages were at present solemnized by the law of God, and by the law of man. It was worse than a mockery to say, that a man might be married with all the sanctities which religion could confer upon the contract, and yet, that, after a minister of the gospel had pronounced him married in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, the caprice of parents should undo so solemn a compact. As to the moral tendency of the clause, what else was it in effect, than to gratify the pride and avarice of parents, at the cost of the ruin and degradation of an innocent female and the bastardizing of her children?

The Lord Chancellor observed,

that if these doctrines could be supported, the House would have nothing to debate upon. But the question was, not whether man should put asunder those whom God had joined, but whether God had joined those who joined themselves fraudulently, and contrary to the laws of their country. Now, unless he had mistaken the whole tenor of the Old and New Testament, there was nothing contained in the scriptures, which could be taken to prevent national societies from prescribing the forms by which marriages should be solemnized. If it were otherwise, there was not a nation on earth, since the Christian era, which had not concurred in a most profane praetice. Much had been said of the tenderness, with which the interests of females should be regarded in the bill before the House. He had no sort of objection to doing so, but he wished that some care should be extended also to the males. It happened to him, in the discharge of his judicial functions, to see frequent instances of the necessity of protecting the latter. In one of recent occurrence, the daughter of a bricklayer, a woman 32 years of age, with several illegitimate children, had prevailed upon a youth of 17, of high family and rank, to marry her.

Lord Liverpool stated, that he objected to the principle of the clause altogether, even if its object were right; because there were two ways of accomplishing itthe first by nullity, and the other by voidability, both of which principles were of directly opposite natures; and nullity, though sufficiently objectionable, was less so in principle than voidability. It was easy to see, how the present clause had originated. The House

had both these difficulties before them; they resorted to this clause by way of compromise; and, as usually happened, the compromise occasioned more of real difficulty than either alternative. If de facto a marriage did take place, and the parties coming to the altar made the vows there tendered to them falsely and knowingly, the marriage might be made null and void. But the most preposterous part of the proposed law was, that if you asked the parties one month afterwards, whether they were married, they would be compelled to answer, "We don't know, for the validity of our marriage depends upon the act of a third party, over whose proceedings we have no control." It was inconceivable, how such a state of things could be compatible with the principles of the law. He knew that in some cases there must be a nullity, but that there should be a voidability was most objectionable. Even if it were advisable that the marriages of minors should be dissoluble, it should be effected by means of making them null and void-not voidable. Another objection was -that the clause would not be sufficient to effect the object at which it aimed: for what was the clause worth, if marriages in Scotland, on the continent, and by bans, were left free from its operation? The learned lord, had said, very truly, that there were cases of female as well as of male seduction, but it became their lordships to consider chiefly that which was most usual, and he would venture to say, that, in nineteen cases out of twenty, the female was the seduced party. The woman, who after the marriage had been completed, should be turned adrift, had nothing before her but dis

grace, misery, and ruin. The man, if by the persuasion of his friends, or from any other cause, he should be induced to give up her whom he had engaged to protect, would, during the whole of his life, be subject to feelings of no enviable description. However much improvident marriages were to be deprecated, there was no mending the matter by dissolving them. In the majority of cases it would be more tender and humane to provide, that the parent or guardian should have no choice, than that he should have one; not knowing the feelings of the parties, and not perhaps being capable of forming a correct notion of what his duty might call for. It was a responsibility which, in his own case, he should regret to be under.

The clause was supported by the archbishop of Canterbury, the bishop of London, lord Sidmouth, and lord Stowell. Formerly, said lord Stowell, it was assumed, in all cases, that the consent of parents or guardians had been granted to those about to enter into matrimony, although, in point of fact, little more was deemed necessary than the consent of the two parties themselves. In this state the matter continued for a long series of years, and that rule survived the Reformation. But soon after, the attention of the reformers was called to the propriety of strengthening the parental authority. The doctrine was then expressly promulgated, that where marriages were contracted without the consent of parents, they should be totally null and void; and thus the law remained till the time of lord Hardwicke, when the disturbances in society, from the want of an efficient marriage law, induced him to turn his serious attention to

the subject. His act was superseded by that which had been passed last year, and, in consequence of the inconveniences experienced under the latter measure, it became necessary to reconsider the subject. The committee, in turning their attention to it, found there were only four possible ways, in which the authority of the parent could be regarded ;—namely, nullity, voidability, a preventive measure, or the doing of that which was extremely objectionable, throwing the reins at once on the neck of youth, at a period of life when passion always outran prudence. Nullity, he would say, in point of principle, appeared to him, up to the present moment, to be the proper course. But the general opinion was, that nullity was a monster, against which every rational man ought to take alarm; and therefore it was abandoned. Another mode had been suggested by a noble and learned person→→→ that of a remedy by a preventive measure.

If he thought a preventive measure could succeed, he should consider that to be a very advisable course; but, on principle, he knew that it could not succeed. The experiment had been tried, and it had totally failed. The number of marriages had so decreased under that preventive system, that the demoralization of the country was likely to ensue. The last and only remaining principle, was a medium between the entire dereliction of parental authority on the one side, and entire voidability on the other. Though the committee were by no means insensible to the objections which existed against the principle of limited voidability, they thought it was one which ought to be submitted to the con