a dispensation is required to remove. Two members of a Circassian brotherhood, not at all akin, may not marry.

I believe that amongst the Jews it is customary for uncles to marry nieces, and I have been informed by Dr. Farr that a similar custom prevails in the Isle of Wight, notwithstanding that English law does not recognise such unions.

Our present table of prohibitions (with the exception of those against marriage with a deceased wife's sister or husband's brother) seems a juste milieu between extreme restraint and extreme laxity; it may perhaps, however, come about that marriages of first-cousins may be ultimately prohibited, should the evil arising from such unions prove as great as is sometimes asserted.

Passing over a great lacuna in my knowledge, I now come to the Teutonic communistic bodies. My information is derived from an interesting pamphlet which has lately appeared at Berlin, by Karl Siegwart. In these feudal communistic bodies the right to marry and form a household played a great part as a means of reward and advancement. During the period of "ministerial service," when each man was bound to give all the product of his labor to the commonwealth, restraint to liberty of marriage was the rule, and only those might marry who had reached a certain age or position; not a soul dared marry without permission, and this permission was refused to soldiers, husbandmen, and artizans alike, during their apprenticeship. The households, the number of which was kept almost invariable, were partitioned out amongst the marriageable classes; and the majority had to wait for the deaths of their predecessors in office. Even the artizans in the free towns had to wait until they could buy the business of a deceased master, or marry his widow or daughter; and in the latter case, although the business was not at first strictly heritable, only if there were no son in waiting. Even in the lowest classes no one might marry until a household was at liberty for him. A great part of these institutions seem to have remained in almost full operation down to the Reformation. And even subsequently, breaches of these marriage customs seem to have been punished with frightful severity. The transgressor was thrown naked into a hole full of thorns, impaled, or buried alive; assaults on women were pun

ished with death. The mother of an illegitimate child was exposed in the pillory, and either executed or graciously condemned to imprisonment; if the child was not yet born she either committed suicide or was drowned by her relations, and the seducer caught in the act was castrated. Prostitution was not merely tolerated, but was secretly promoted as a check to over-population, as in Japan at the present day. berty to marry in these communities was in fact used as the highest reward for good service, and breach of the custom punished in the harshest manner.

Li

As far as I know, all modern restrictive legislation has been entirely directed to the prevention of pauperisation. Thus in Switzerland a scheme was proposed and debated in the Legislature of the Canton of Thurgau, of which (as well as of what actually obtains in the Canton of St. Gall) Mr. Laing gives the following account:"The first article of their (the Thurgovian) proposed law prohibits the marriage of males who live by public charity; the second requires that to obtain permission to marry, a certificate from the overseers of the poor must be produced of the industry and love of labor and of the good conduct of the parties, and that, besides clothes, they are worth 700 francs French or about 30%. sterling. The third article of this extraordinary law in a free state makes the marriage admissible without the proof of this 700 francs of value in moveable property, if the parties have furniture free of debt, and pay the poor-tax of 1 per mille upon fixed property. Their legislation had sense enough to reject this absurd proposition in 1833. The canton of St. Gall, however, actually has imposed a tax on marriages; and to make it popular the amount goes to the poor fund. It fails because, according to Sir F. d'Ivernois, it is too low, being 46 francs, about 71 francs French, or 37. sterling; and because it is not graduated according to the ages of the parties, so as to prevent early marriages." Mr. Laing further states that in Germany commissaries have actually been appointed by some governments (Bavaria among others), who are vested with the power to refuse permission to marry to those whom they judge not able to support a family. They have a veto on marriages.

In Saxony an extraordinary facility of

* "Notes of a Traveller," p. 341.

66

divorce exists. "A separation of a husband and wife after three, four, or six weeks' marriage is nothing rare or strange." Marriage seems almost to amount to a temporary arrangement. In a village near the Kochel, out of sixteen marriages, after one year only six of the contracting parties were still living together." Mutual dislike is a ground for divorce (as is also the case according to the Prussian Landrecht and in Baden), and divorces have even been granted on account of drunkenness, staying out at night, ill-smelling breath, groundless complaining, and drunkenness of the father-in-law. !! Sometimes, however, a fresh marriage is forbidden to the parties for four or five years. In Hungary, too, the same great facility of divorce obtains.

Marriages between Catholics and Protestants are not acknowledged in Brazil, and a priest has even been known to celebrate a marriage between parties, one of whom he knew to have been previously married to a Protestant.

The examples which I have here thrown together are, I think, sufficient to show how great a diversity of marriage customs has at various times prevailed, and still prevails, among civilized nations. Does not this serve as an answer to those objectors who would say,-"We shall never submit to having our marriage laws more restricted"? For when one can point out so great a diversity of restrictions, many of which are no longer maintained for any good reason, it is surely absurd to say that nothing new will be endured, even though it may be founded on the best of reasons. Our state of civilization has so diminished the force of Natural Selection, that we cannot much longer afford to neg

lect some process of artificial selection, to replace the method which nature has been carrying on from the beginning, and that nation which has first the courage to adopt some such plan, must undoubtedly gain on others in the vigor of its members in mind and body.

To those who are inclined to regard all designs of improvement for the human being of the future as chimerical, I cannot do better than quote Mr. Spencer's words, that there are now in existence "various germs of things which will in the future develope in ways no one imagines, and take shares in profound transformations of society and of its members-transformations that are hopeless as immediate results, but certain as ultimate results." The germ in this case is the growing belief in the truth of heredity. There is no doubt that for a time such legislation, as here proposed, would be resisted, just as, in defiance of English law, marriages are now contracted with the sisters of deceased wives, and men refuse to vaccinate their children; but in course of time, as the knowledge of heredity percolates more and more from the educated to the uneducated, such legislation will probably be acknowledged as well founded, and will be universally acquiesced in.

The prospect of the institution of such schemes is certainly not immediate, and a man would be sanguine to expect to live to see them in operation; but as is well known, the first stage in all reforms is that of discussion and diffusion of opinion, and as hitherto the possibility of improving the marriage relationship has been barely mooted, I have thought I might perhaps do some service by directing attention to the subject.—Contemporary Review.

Chas. Boner. P. 483, et seq.

+ P. 501.

tively mild form of an alienation of waver

ing Liberals from their party, and an inclination to see whether a Conservative Government can not impart a more healthy tone to society. But on the Continent, and especially in France, there is a very large and active party which proclaims as loudly and persistently as it can that the only way to get the laborer into a right frame of mind again as regards his work and wages is to submit him once more to the old authority of a despotic religion. The pre-eminent thought in minds of this type is that half measures, half religions, and half governments have failed. They have encouraged an amount of liberty with which they have not been able to cope after it has once attained its full force. They have made men discontented, disorderly, and unhappy, and if mankind is ever to be happy again, it must return to the paths it has deserted. There is nothing new in this, as there have always been in every age crowds of people who have thought that the only reason why governments ever failed was that they did not govern enough, and that religious authorities should seize hold of every man from his cradle to his grave, and, with the aid of the civil authorities working submissively under them, should take care that he did not come to harm, or bring others to harm in this world or the next. What is new, at least in this generation, is the determined and thorough manner in which this view of human life is now asserted in the face of the violent opposition it excites. In every direction the Absolutist party takes the ground of rejecting every compromise, and of carrying out its theories without heeding any of the limits which common sense or the strength of counter-theories might impose. In politics it is engaged in a fierce combat, beating down Republicans, sneering at Constitutionalists, spreading the peace of silence wherever it can reach. In religion it is loth to trouble itself with evidences, modest misgivings, limited adoration. It is determined to have miracles and visions, and it has them. It delights in every form of mysticism and pietistic rapture. It sees in every event of life a judgment or a blessing according to its prepossessions. And then all this fervor and this distaste for half measures constantly find force and support in the dogma of infallibility which has so largely changed the attitude of the Church to the Civil Power. One mouth now pronounces absolutely and unquestion

ably what is right; and all bargains with the Civil Power-concordats, vetoes on bishops, and other devices by which the State kept the Church somewhat in the background-now seem out of date. The Pope alone is to speak, and kings, and emperors, and presidents have but to listen.

The consequences of this new attitude of the Absolutist or Ultramontane party are rapidly making themselves felt all over the world. It was because the Irish bishops would have all or nothing that the very liberal offer made on the part of the State by Mr. Gladstone to the Irish Catholics was rejected, and the problem of Irish Education was deferred to a remote future. In Germany the collision between Church and State grows every day more intense. There the State is a great power, and its means of annoying a religious body which defies it are very considerable. On neither side is there any flinching. The Government has armed itself with new laws, and is resolutely putting them in force, and it has taken under its protection that small body of Catholics which openly stands aloof from the bulk of the community to which it lately belonged, and rejects the dogma of infallibility. The legislation of the summer has enabled the Prussian authorities to inspect and decide on the merits of every clerical institution, and Commissioners are at work who do their duty without any hesitation, and insist on the secrets of every institution being revealed to them. If they report against an institution and their report is approved of, the institution is at once closed. Schoolmasters are warned that they must not belong to those Catholic associations which are pronounced to be dangerous, or they will forthwith be dismissed. The Archbishop of Posen has been sentenced to a heavy fine for contravention of the new laws, and the State authorities have given notice in a town where an incumbent was appointed by an Archbishop in a manner not permitted by the law, that the State will not recognize any of the acts performed by this ecclesiastic, and, more especially, that marriages celebrated by him will be considered invalid, and that children baptized by him will need to be rebaptized. The Courts have also intervened to help the Government. They have decided that the Old Catholics are not Dissenters, and that they are a religious body recognized

by the law, so that attacks on their worship by their Ultramontane enemies may be punished as libellous. The Government, adopting this view, and carrying it out to its natural conclusion, has not only refused to inte: fere with the Old Catholics, but has appointed an Old Catholic to be an inspector of schools in a district where a large portion of the schools he will have to inspect belong to Catholics. The Ultramontanes pay as little attention as they possibly can to the decrees of the State, will not come when they are sent for, or do as they are bid, and keep doing what they are forbidden to do by law. That they will be in some degree strengthened by the severe measures taken to coerce them, that their ardor will grow more intense, that their secret associations will become more powerful, and that they will gain in coherence and organization, is tolerably certain. But whether the State may not in the long run and on the whole beat them, and make the mass of Germans hold aloof from them, is still uncertain. The Government has on its side the idea of the State and of its authority which is now so deeply planted in the German mind. It has also the national spirit, which sees in German Ultramontanes the friends of France and the enemies of the Fatherland. But perhaps what will tell for the Government more than anything is that it daily becomes clearer from the experience of other countries that a nation must, since the promulgation of the dogma of infallibility, either quarrel with Ultramontanism or bow to it. Germans might get tired of a purely German contest, but when they look beyond Germany they will see that what is happening to them is happening to a great many other people also, and that they must in some shape or other take their share in a struggle that is almost universal.

If there was one place more than another where it might have been supposed that Ultramontanism would find none of that moderate resistance which consists not in breaking away from religion, but in attempting to set bounds to ecclesiastical power, it was South America. But even there the quarrel which is distracting Germany has begun to rage. The State in Brazil finds itself defied by the Church, and the State in Brazil is tolerably strong, and respects itself, and does not feel disposed to do exactly what it is told to do by ec

clesiastics of the modern type. The bishops in Brazil have ventured on two measures which have placed them in antagonism with the Government. They have introduced, without the permission of the Government, which is legally necessary for the purpose, Papal decrees, and put them in force, and they have taken upon themselves to excommunicate Freemasons, and to refuse them the rites of the Church. It may be added that very recently a new set of bishops, foreigners and violent Ultramontanes, have been imposed on the country by Rome, while the local clergy has still some feelings of independence remaining. Thus exactly the same questions which have arisen in Germany are arising in Brazil. The three main offences of the Prussian bishops in the eyes of the Government were that they set up the law as promulgated by the Pope above the law of the State, that they abused the power of excommunication, and that they were parties to a system by which Catholic Germany was flooded with importations of foreign ecclesiastics. To make the bishops and their inferiors obey the State laws, to keep their power of excommunication within the narrowest possible limits, and to drive foreign ecclesiastics out of the country, were the aims which those who framed the new Prussian ecclesiastical legislation had constantly in view. Whether the State, if pushed to extremities in Brazil, will adopt measures of equal vigor, it is as yet too early to say; but at present the Emperor and his advisers appear determined not to shrink, and they are said to be effectually supported by popular opinion. In Europe the contest is perpetually assuming a political form which in some degree conceals its true character. It has a tendency to merge itself in the general quarrel between France and Germany. The Swiss Government has been among the foremost to withstand the new ecclesiastical onslaught, and it is said that the Ultramontane party in Switzerland has recently applied for aid to the new French Government; while the Italian Government has given a public intimation of its conviction that the new-born fervor of French officials for pilgrimages and expiatory churches and clerical intrusion into the army constitute a menace to Italy which it would be folly to disregard. But with regard to Brazil, there is no political question of the kind. If there is to be a war of revenge, Brazil

can help neither party, and it is therefore in the highest degree instructive to find that there too the new dogma is producing

a crisis essentially the same as that through which Germany and Switzerland and Italy are passing.-Saturday Review.

MacMahon received his military education at St. Cyr, and at the age of 19 was made sub-lieutenant of the 4th Hussars, of which his brother was then captain. He soon saw active service. Proceeding with his regiment to Algeria, he engaged in the Algerian war, and in the year 1830 won the Cross of the Legion of Honor, which he received from Gen. Clauzel on the field of battle. The next year he was appointed lieutenant in the 8th Cuirassiers, and in 1832, as aide-de-camp to General Achard, he shared in the expedition to Belgium, and won the Cross of the Order of Leopold by his bravery at the siege of Antwerp. This campaign over, he returned to Africa where he won still greater distinction. At the attack on Constantine, in 1836, he received a slight wound, was commended for his bravery, and was promoted to the grade of officer of the Legion of Honor. Some years afterward, he organized the Tenth Battalion of Chasseurs d'Orleans; he became in 1842 Lieutenant Colonel of the Second Foreign Legion; next Colonel of the 41st infantry; and finally, in 1848, General of Brigade and Governor of Tiem

When in April, 1855, at the outbreak of the war with Russia, MacMahon was recalled to Paris, he had served about 25 years in Africa, obeying with military precision the several governments which had in the mean time ruled France, supporting Napoleon as loyally as he did the Bourbon Charles X. He proceeded from Paris to the seat of war in the Crimea, where he commanded a division of infantry in Marshal Bosquet's corps. In the final assault on Sebastopol (September 8, 1855,) he had the perilous honor of leading the attack on the Malakoff, which formed the key to the Russian defenses. In a few instants, owing to the irresistible ardor of his troops, he penetrated the fort, and there resisted for hours the desperate attacks of the Russians. While in this dangerous position MacMahon received orders to return from Pellissier, who had been told that the Malakoff was mined. Reluctant to give up advantages he had so dearly gained, he answered: "I will hold my ground, dead or alive," and, true to his word, he remained until the Russians, baffled by the obstinacy and daring of the French, began a headlong retreat, and Sebastopol was

won.

This daring exploit, which virtually ended the war, won MacMahon worldwide fame, and secured him, with the Grand Cross, the rank of Senator. When peace relieved him from further service. in Europe, he returned to the scene of his early campaigns, and was soon actively engaged in subduing the bold and intrepid mountain tribes of Kabylia. In a short time he received command of the land and sea forces of Algeria, and was reposing on his well-won laurels when called to the field by the outbreak of war with Austria. In command of the Second Army of the Alps, he rendered signal service at Magenta. In one week Napoleon had driven the Austrians across the Ticino, turned their flank, and forced them to give battle.

Attacked unexpectedly at the Bridge of