of spring-guns, in which it originated, execution of the law as those in which was lost in the Commons by a single vote. PES T infamizing punishments are denounced against persons habitually considered as scarcely criminal. The unpopularity of the measure is therefore not to be wondered at, though, with slight modifications, it might have been both popular and useful. But the act, like almost every penal law that has resulted from the desultory and unsystematic legislation of the framers of the statute book, while it is too undiscriminating, is not comprehensive. The proper remedy for the defect of the law would have been to have taken away, as far as the crime of larceny was concerned, the absurd distinction of real and personal, not only as it regards growing produce, but as it regards every other species of property that is liable to be the subject of depredation. The numerous convictions under the new Felony Act have turned public attention to that measure. Nothing seems, on general principles, more reasonable than that the stealing of an apple growing on a tree should be placed in the same scale of crime as the stealing of an apple lying under a tree. The distinction which made the one a felony, the other a trespass, was technical, and in the highest degree absurd. Upon the same principle (that the taking away any part of a freehold is not felony but trespass) the man who clandestinely took the whole of the lead off the roof of another's house could for merly be prosecuted, if he were discovered, only by action, as for a civil injury; though if, instead of the roof itself, he took any trifling article of property lying upon it, he would have been punishable as a thief. And even now, though to steal a key out of a door is a clear felony, we doubt whether to steal the door off its hinges be any offence. But, in making a new class of offences, some pains should have been taken in apportioning the punishment, so that public opinion should not revolt at the application of it. There are many cases in which thefts in gardens and orchards are boyish frolics, and would be, according to the prevailing opinion, far too severely punished by the mere committal for trial. It may be said, that public opinion in this respect ought to be changed; but that change is not likely to be effected by a law, the execution of which would bring more odium on the prosecutor than on the delinquent. Under the French code, the stealing of fruit for the purpose of eating it on the spot is punishable only by a fine of a few francs; and the puBishment is quite sufficient. Some provision of this kind should have been introduced into Lord Suffield's bill; and, perhaps, in all cases where the property stolen is of small value, a fine, payable to the owner upon summary conviction, would be much more likely to be inflicted, and, therefore, more effectual than a Uniturians' Marriage Bill. severer punishment. Of all the instances of disproportion between offences and penalties, none are so injurious to the due The stealing of lead, and in some instances produce, was made criminal by statutes of the last century, a But it whatever are the defects in this act, it takes away the only pretence for the toleration of spring-guns; we cannot say their lawfulness; for no one, not excepting the judges, seems to know whe ther they have been lawful or not. The rejection of the bill for settling the law on this subject affords a singular example of the feelings of the majority of the Legislature on the subject of jurisprudence. Though the law on this head is notoriously doubtful-though the judges have delivered conflicting opinions on it, and though these circumstances were brought under the notice of Parlament, yet the House of Commons preferred this state of uncertainty to any distinct legislation on the subject. The bill, which may be considered a declaratory one passed through that House of Parliament which, besides forming a part of the Legislature, is the highest court of appeak. The opinion of the greatest judicial body of the kingdom is thus given in favour of one interpretation of the law, while the House of Commons reject this interpretation without proposing or attempting to frame any other..... CHURCH ESTABLISHMENT. The question, whether it be right and safe to tolerate the Unitarians, has been already decided by the Legislature. They have been declared worthy of the degree aft of protection and liberty which is con ceded to other dissenters. An end has | No directions exist on that subject, either been put to their direct exclusion from the in the laws of Moses or the precepts of benefits of the Toleration Act. But the Christianity. The divinity of the instiindirect exclusion still operates, and ren- tution cannot be plainer than that the ders their toleration incomplete. They mode of its celebration was altogether may worship God according to the dic-left to the choice and consciences of intates of their consciences; but on one of dividuals. This freedom was only terthe most important and interesting occa- minated by the usurpations of the Romish sions which human life presents, they hierarchy; and Pope Innocent III. must also worship, or seem to worship about the commencement of the thirteenth God, in a manner inconsistent with those century, was the first who ordained the dictates. Religious liberty is not less celebration of marriage in the church. violated by the enforcement of Trinitarian, The utmost, therefore, for which any than it would be by the prohibition of Protestant ecclesiastic can consistently Unitarian worship. contend is, that some religious ceremony is essential to the marriage union; not that the ceremony adopted by his church is so. His authorities go no further. Whether that ceremony, should be imposed is a question of expediency, not of conscience, and must be decided on the ground of public utility. It is generally thought desirable that some religious observance should solemnize an entrance upon the matrimonial state. To this the Unitarians do not object. But whatever good effects are contemplated in a religious ceremony must be contingent on the conviction of the parties who perform that ceremony. The members of the Church of England, and even those dissenters who agree with them in doctrines, may be much edified by the service as it now stands. But a compulsory assent to propositions which áre disbelieved, produces no edification. It is an act of hypocrisy, and depraves the moral sense, or it engenders irritation and leads to brawling. The house of prayer becomes the arena of theological conflict, and moral utility is the last result which can be anticipated under such circumstances. If any force can be added to the obligation of the matrimonial contract, if public good of any kind can be produced by associating religious sancnions with that contract, they must at least be the sanctions of a religion which the persons contracting hold in reverence. On this ground, it is not difficult to dis pose of the objections which were urged against the Unitarian Dissenters' Mar riage bill, and which ultimately occasioned its rejection. The most important objection is, that the bill would revive those facilities for effecting clandestine marriages, to destroy which was the great object of Lord Hardwicke's act. This objection seems to have been anticipated by the applicants, and was precluded by the first measure introduced on their behalf by Mr. W. Smith, in the session of 1819. The plan then proposed was, that on the produc tion of a written declaration that the parties were Unitarian Dissenters, the clergyman should omit that portion of the ser vice in which an act of Trinitarian worship is performed. This single alteration would have satisfied the petitioners. It would have left all things else connected The prelates of the church of England are accustomed to speak of marriage as a divine institution; but the law has recog-with the subject, by law or custom, prenized it merely as a civil contract. Dur cisely as they now are. But it was found to ing the protectorate, parties proposing to be so offensive to the clergy, that the plan marry, presented themselves, not to the was abandoned. According to the present clergyman, but to the magistrate. They bill, the marriage was to be solemnized were content with the benediction of a iu the Unitarian chapel, but all the existing justice of the peace; and, after the resto-regulations of prevention and security, as ration, these unions were declared to be the mode of obtaining licenses, the proas valid as if they had been celebrated clamation of banus, and the record in the according to the established ritual. Black-parochial register (the clergyman of the stone says expressly, that our law con*siders marriage in no other light than as a civil contract." But, assuming that it is a divine institution, assuredly divine authority cannot be pleaded for any particular form of solemnization. parish having previous notice of the solemnization, and the parties attending on the same day, with a certificate of its having taken place) were to be preserved. As additional precautions, it was provid ed, that the chapel should have been re there had been forty or fifty years of silent acquiescence on the part of the Unitarians, and that they had no more reason to complain, than other Protestant dissenters. With respect to the supposed acquiescence, so long as the penal sta tutes against denying the doctrine of the Trinity remained in force, it is obvious, that no application for relief from a Trinitarian ceremony, could have been entertained by the legislature; and it was not likely that such an application should be made, which of itself would have been a confession sufficient to subject the applicant to a penalty. These penalties were not abolished till the year 1813; in 1814, the Unitarians protested in the churches; in 1816, or 1817, they petitioned the legislature for relief; and in 1819, Mr. William Smith introduced a bill, which, had it passed, would have removed the grievance. With respect to the other Protestant dissenters, they are all Trini gistered for worship twelve months previously; that it should be specially registered for the celebration of marriages; that notice of such registration should be placed in some conspicuous part of the interior; that the number of chapels to be so registered, should be limited to six, within the bills of mortality; two in each of the following towns, Bristol, Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, and Leeds; one in every other city and market town; and that in no other part of England or Wales, should there be any chapel entitled to registration within six miles of any other previously registered; that the Minister should also be specially registered in the Ecclesiastical Court; that the performance of marriage by any minister not duy qualified, or not according to the provisions of the act, should be felony; and that all marriages celebrated without licence, or publication of banns, or in an unregistered chapel, should be null and void. It was also provided, that, in giving no-tarians, and as such, feel no repugnance tice to the clergyman of the intended marriage, the same fees should be paid to him, as are at present paid for actually solemnizing it; thus securing to the Established Church, untouched, all that it now possesses of power and emolument. It seems, however, difficult to concert a scheme which will not be encountered by some scruples on behalf of the Clergy. It was alleged that they could not, conscientiously, become registrars of marriages celebrated in chapels at once Dissenting and Unitarian. The petitioners have to meet this difficulty, on their next application, by the establishment of some office of registration of their own. 66 Another objection urged by Mr. Peel, was, "that if every man in society were "allowed to select the individual by "whom he should be married, the marriage vow would not be observed with that sanctity with which it was at pre"sent." Yet Dissenters are in full possession of this right both in Ireland and Scotland; and while the average of ma. trimonial morality is not below that of England in the one country, in the other it is generally allowed to be superior. The Unitarians must have very singular notions of obligation, if they can be made to feel more deeply the sanctity of a vow, by being compelled to take it in names, to which they ascribe no attribute of Divinity. Mr. Peel seemed to think too, that to the marriage ceremony of the Church of England; or so little as not to have esteemed it worth while to engage in any contest on the subject with the ecclesias tical courts; for in the courts of common Jaw, Lord C. J. Holt seems to have held their marriages valid, and at the present day, the marriages of Jews and Quakers stand on no surer foundation. The mar riages of persons belonging to those sects, are indeed exempted from the regulations prescribed by Lord Hardwicke's act t. But this exception does not of itself legalize them; it only confirmed the validity which they previously possessed, which differed in nothing from that of the marriages of other non-conformists. Now But it has been urged, that if the members of this sect be allowed to marry ia their own way, so also must the members of all other sects. The argument assumes, that the cases are similar, and that the consequence would be an evil. the cases are not similar. The difference has been already pointed out. Other sects agree with the establishment in its Trinitarian faith. They can join in its worship; the Unitarian cannot: the mischief of his being allowed to adopt form more accordant with his creed, under precautions similar to those which are contemplated in the present case, is not to be easily discovered, and ought at least to be specifically pointed out by those who make the objection. † 26 Geo. II. PUBLIC HEALTH. THE inconvenience occasioned by the operation of the Quarantine laws, has produced, in many quarters, a demand for the modification or revision of them; but before we can determine the expediency of any considerable alteration of these laws, we ought to ascertain, with precision, whether they do or do not prevent evils much greater in amount than the inconveniencies they occasion. In a word, whether there is any foundation for the opinion on which these laws are founded, that the Plague, Typhous fever, and certain other diseases, are propagated by contagion. We may state briefly then, that up to a comparatively recent period, the prevailing opinions on the subject of contagion were nearly as follows, viz.; That certain diseases, such as Plague, Typhous fever, and Scarlatina, as well as Small-pox, Measles, Hooping-cough, and some others, are communicable by contact with the diseased patient,-by the effluvia exhaled from his body, and by his breath or saliva:-That certain clothes, particularly of woollen or cotton, if long placed in juxtaposition, or contact, with the patient, have the property of becoming thereby so affected as afterwards to communicate the disease at almost any distance of place or time; and that by this means, in particular, the Small-pox and Typhous fever have been disseminated, in various parts of the globe, by European ships, the crews of which had no such disease among them: That the activity of the animal poison, as communicable in any of the ways above-mentioned, or in other words, the susceptibility of the human frame to be affected by it, varies considerably in different individuals, and at different times. Of f the causes of these variations nothing is known; but it has been observed that in certain states of the atmosphere, and during certain winds, the progress of contagious diseases is checked, if not altogether suspended; as in cold dry weather;-and that in certain other states of the atmosphere, as in a hot and humid temperature, their progress is unusually rapid and fatal: It has been also observed, that these diseases seldom attack the same person twice: which circumstance, by diminishing the number of persons liable to attack,and the variations of the atmosphere, by lowering the degress of susceptibility,-have been thought to afford a sufficient explanation of the occasionally sudden suspension or cessation of these contagious diseases; while the retention of the infectious matter, or fomites, in clothes of various kinds, and, the transmission of the disease under every impediment to a few highly susceptible. temperaments, are supposed to account for their periodical reappearance, whenever the state of the atmosphere, and the combination of circumstances, is favourable to its diffusion. The attention of the medical world, and of the public at large, has been lately drawn to a renewed attempt to overthrow the received doctrine of contagion, as it applies to certain diseases generally reputed contagious, and more particularly to the plague, typhous fever, and scarlatina. This opinion seems to have taken its rise in America, during the discussions, on the subject of the yellow fever, more particularly those respecting its contagious. nature. Dr. Bayley, of New York, in his account of the yellow fever, prevalent in that city in 1795, maintained that it was not contagious, and extended the same theory to other epidemics. The same doctrine was afterwards adopted and illustrated by Dr. Millar*, and other American physicians. In this country, its chief advocates have been Dr. Adams+ and Dr. Macleant. We shall proceed to give the outline of their theory, and of the arguments they have advanced in its support. In order to understand this theory, it is necessary to keep in view the distinctions on which they found it; and the meaning they have affixed to certain terms. They begin by dividing diseases into three classes; namely, contagious, epidemic, and sporadic diseases §. To the first division, or that of contagious diseases, belong, as the name im Report to the Government of New York, Jan. 1806. + An Inquiry into the Laws of Epidemics, with Remarks on the Plan lately proposed for exter minating the small pox, By Joseph Adams, M.D. 1809. Result of an Investigation respecting Epidemic and Pestilential Diseases, including Researches in the Levant, concerning the Plague, by Charles Maclean, M. D. 2 vols. 1817. Maclean, Result, &c, i. 148. 5 H ports, all diseases which are capable of being communicated from person to person. They are either general or local. As belonging to the former class, Dr. Maclean specifies small-pox and measles: as examples of the latter, he points out syphilis and the itch *. An epidemic disease is defined by some writers to be a disease which is not capable of being propagated by contagion; but which, at certain periods, prevails generally over the whole, or over a large portion of a community. "It comprehends "all the intermediate degrees of affection, "between the slightest catarrh, and the "most destructive pestilence t.” A sporadic disease, is a disease which arises either in a single instance only, or of which the cases at one time are few and scattered: this division comprehends, therefore, all the affections which are not included under the two former divisions. They hold that it is only the small number of diseases comprehended under the first class of the first division, in this new classification (that is, general contagious diseases), that are communicable from person to person, through the medium of the atmosphere. With regard to these diseases, they adopt the common theory; that is, they admit that a specific animal poison is reproduced in each patient in whom the disease takes place, and that it is transmitted and applied to the person who subsequently becomes infected. It is to be observed, that the catalogue of diseases in which they admit this operation of contagion by effluvia, is rather short. Dr. Maclean enumerates only two, namely, small-pox and measles. Dr. Adams joins with these scarlatina, which Dr. Maclean expressly excludes from this class. There can be no difficulty, they say, in distinguishing diseases of this class; because "diseases, which are produced by "a specific contagion, have never been "known to depend upon any othert: and "because contagion, in its operation on the "human body, observes certain fixed laws. "A knowledge of these laws is essential "to the understanding of this subject §." They are stated to be as follows: * Maclean, Result, &c. i. 158. Westminster Review, iii, 139. The outline of the doctrine concerning the laws of epidemics and contagious diseases, is abridged from the account given in that article, p. 139, et seq. 1. Contagious diseases produce certain phenomena; that is, a combination of certain symptoms, which symptoms are determinate and uniform, never varying, except in degrees. Each disease, under every variety of circumstance, preserves the same specific character. 2. The phenomena produced by contagious diseases are not only determinate in themselves, but they are uniform in their progress, and in their termination. The order and succession of symptoms are constant, and the periods of their different stages are fixed and invariable. 3. The morbid matter producing a contagions disease, being once secreted, that disease can be propagated at any time, and amongst any number of persons, by this specific virus: and these effects can be produced by no other cause. From this law it follows that no disease which is not contagious at its commencement, can become contagious in its progress. 4. General or acute contagious diseases are incapable of affecting the same person more than once in the course of his life. This is considered as a peculiar and distinguishing law of general contagious diseases: and it is a circumstance which sets boundaries to infection, and could alone, when no precautions are taken, prevent communities from being extinguished. Epidemic diseases are said to present a perfect contrast to general contagious diseases. They are governed by laws equally precise and uniform; but these laws are just the reverse of those of contagious diseases. For instance, the phenomena of epidemic diseases, instead of being determinate and uniform, are diversified in the highest degree, observe no regular course, and their duration is variable. On the other hand, the periods at which they commence, decline, and cease, are determinate, and exact; and these periods correspond with certain states of the seasons. They dif fer in different countries according to their geographical position, and they may be anticipated or postponed by circumstances, but in general they are remarkably uniform. They are capable of affecting the same persons repeatedly, and in general, relapses are so frequent and so fatal, that they may be ranked among the chief causes of the excessive mortality of epidemic diseases. As the classification of diseases into contagious,epidemic, and sporadic, is intended |