1753. PROCEEDINGS of the POLITICAL CLUB, &c. 407 I shall now give you the only other Speech we bad made in our Club, upon what we called the Second reading of the Marriage Bill, which was made by Afranius Burrhus, and was to this Effect. Mr. Prefident, TH HE Hon. gentleman who spoke laft was very much in the right when he fuppofed, that in oppofing this bill he had all the strongest paffions of mankind to combat againft; and if he had fuppofed, that he had likewife the reafon and common fenfe of mankind to combat againft, he would have been equally in the right; for furely it is not only the Intereft but the duty of every parent to take care, that his child fhall not contract a fcandalous or an infamous marriage, and if he cannot do this by his paternal authority, the laws ought to affift him as far as poffible: It is likewife the intereft of every fociety that all marriages Thould be publickly known; and it is the intereft of every individual, not to run headlong into a contract, which is the most important of any they can ever enter into, and which, without a high crime, can never be diffolved, during the lives of the two parties concerned, no not even tho' both should agree to have it diffolved. For thefe reafons, in all well regulated focieties it has been established A B D either by law or cuftom, that the mar- F Now, Sir, if gentlemen will but attend to the laws we have now in being, they muft fee, that all these things have already been by them in a great measure taken care of. No marriage can be good G untefs it has been folemnized according to that religious ceremony prescribed by that feet of religion to which the contracting parties belong, nor can any marriage be regularly entered into without a pre vious proclamation of banns, or a licenc for difpenfing therewith; and originally it was provided, that the banns fhould be proclaimed three different Sundays or holidays in the church or churches where the parties refided, where likewife the marriage ceremony was to be performed, nor was this ever difpenfed with by licence but upon good caufe fhewn, and upon proof that the parents or guardians had confented, if either of the parties were under age. By this regulation it was effectually provided, that every marriage fhould be publickly known and deliberately entered into; and no marriage could be entered into againft the will of the parents or guardians, because they could forbid the banns, if the party was under age, or if they could fhew any other good caufe why the marriage should not be folemnized. But this regulation has in a great measure gone into difufe, or methods have been found to evade it; and therefore we must either be of opinion, that our ancestors had no judgment of what was proper for the good of fociety, or we must think, that it is now neceffary to revive it, and to revive it in fuch manner as may render it effectual. I believe no gentleman will venture to arraign the judgment of his ancestors, becaufe through every age to this very day it has been approved of, and laws made from time to time for enforcing it. Even fo late, Sir, as in the 10th of queen Anne, a law was made for enforcing it, as has already been obferved by the learned gentleman who made you this motion; and as this law has been found to be ineffectual, I cannot fuppofe that the neceffity of a new law will be difputed. I muft fuppofe, that the only difpute will be about the propriety of what is propofed by this bill; and the principal objection feems to be againft that of declaring the marriage void, if not celebrated according to the forms prescribed by the bill. This, it is faid, will derogate from that fuperftitious opinion which the vulgar have of the fanctity of the marriage ceremony; but I never before heard that the render ing it neceffary to go about any religious ceremony with folemnity and deliberation, would derogate from that awe and reverence which the people have for it: On the contrary, we know it adds to it. Do not we every day hear of complaints made against our manner of adminifter. ing oaths, on account of their being adminiftered with fo little folemnity? Is not this affigned as one of the causes why perjury is become fo frequent amongst us? And I believe, no man will fay that the manner of performing the mat • See Lond. Mag. fer laft month, p. 356. riage riage ceremony in the rules of our prifons, This vow, Sir, as to its moral obliga- E age, which a perfon may be deceitfully and rafhly drawn into; and after many trials it has been found by experience, that this cannot be done by any method but that of declaring all marriages void, as to any legal effect, that shall not be entered into and folemnized according to the rules prefcribed by this bill; which rules are no other than fuch as were by F the original chriftian institution of marriage thought neceffary, and regularly are ftill required by the laws we have now in being; and that thefe rules may be known by all women as well as men, particular care is taken by the bill, that the law fhall be promulgated in a very extraordinary manner, by enacting, that it shall be publickly read in all parish churches and publick chapels on fome Sunday in each of the four months before it begins to take place, and four times a year for two years afterwards; fo that women G will be lefs liable to be deceived by a fham marriage, after this law takes place, than they are by our law as it ftands at prefent. But what furprifes me moft, Sir, is that fuch exceptions fhould be taken to this bill, by thofe who cannot be ignorant of the law in this country, with regard to the administration of oaths and the pa. nishments inflicted on perjury. Does not every gentleman know, that by our law it is highly criminal in any man to adminifter an oath, if he is not duly authorized to do fo, and that an oath fo adminiftered is fo far from being deemed an oath, that a falfe oath taken before a man who has no power to adminifter the fame, is neither perjury or falfe-fwearing, nor any way punishable as fuch? Is it not as neceffary that no man fhould be allowed to adminifter the marriage oath or vow, but thofe that are lawfully authorized te de fo? And is it not as confonant to reafen that the marriage oath or vow, when administered by one who has no authority to do fo, fhould have no legal effects, nor be deemed a marriage oath or vow, as that any other oath so administered should not be deemed an oath, or attended with any legal effects? Has not the legislature as much power to prescribe after what method, and by whom, the marriage oath fhall be adminiftered, as it has with refpect to any other oath? And to prevent men and women from living together in a continued state of fornication, is it not neceffary that every marriage should be publickly known? Neither the power of the legislature as to the enacting part of this bill, nor the neceffity of its being paffed into a law, leaft doubted; and as to the bad confecan therefore, I think, Sir, be in the quences apprehended from it, they are, in my opinion, altogether chimerical. There is not the leaft ground to imagine, that it will any way tend towards introducing an aristocracy; for it gives the rich no greater power than they had before, no not even over their own children after they come of age, and before that time neither man nor woman ought to be bound by any contract they make : Nay, I believe it would contribute greatly to the health and ftrength of our people in the next generation, if a law were made for preventing any man or woman's marrying before the age of one and twenty, even with the confent of parents or guardians; for we have the best authority for believing, that early marriages have contributed towards thortening the life of man; as from the facred fcriptures we may learn, that before the flood men were near, 1753. PROCEEDINGS of the POLITICAL CLUB, &c. 409 Bear, may often above a hundred years of A B C D Then, Sir, as to the lower clafs of peo- paffions, but merely from prudential confiderations, a ftate of marriage is more neceifary for them than for people of opulent fortunes; and accordingly we find, they more generally chufe it. As to our feafaring and other itinerant forts of men, Sir, there are few or none of them but have a refidence fome where or other; for a feaman's refidence will always be understood to be in that parish where he ufually refides when he is on thore, and a waggoner or bargeman's refidence must be allowed to be at that place to which his waggon or barge belongs; and if they are to be married by licence, they can be under no difficulty, because they may be married at the parish church were the bride has refided for a month preceding. From hence therefore no objection can be raised against the bill; and as little can any objection be drawn from the confequence of an irregular and void marriage with refpect to the children. We may as well fay, that the incapacities which bastards are by law laid under, are punishments upon the most innocent, as to fay, that the declaring of an irregular marriage void is a punishment upon the most innocent. These incapacities were introduced not as punishments upon the children, but as incentives to marriage, and for the fame purpose they may and ought to be extended to children born after a clandeftine and irregular marriage. Baftardy, I shall grant, is a misfortune upon a child born out of lawful wedlock; but it can no more be called a punishment than that of a child's being born without a leg or an arm; and will any one fay, that in order to prevent this misfortune we ought to remove all the incapacities of baftardifm, or that we ought to declare every marriage good and lawful, tho' never fo irregularly or perhaps whimfically folemnized? With regard to the law as it ftands at prefent, I am really, Sir, surprised, that more innocent girls are not drawn in by fham marriages than we find there are, because it is now fo very difficult to determine what is, or is not a good marriage, and still more difficult to convict a man of polygamy, who has been married in a clandeftine manner. But if this bill fhould be paffed into a law, it will be fo eafy to know all the requifites for rendering a marriage lawful and binding, that no woman can be deceived, if he is not willing to be fo, and for fuch women the law ought not to provide any relief, because they deferve none. Therefore, fhould this bill be paffed into a law, there will not be the leaft danger of a young rake's marrying feveral times before he Fif comes comes of age, or even fo much as once, without the confent of his parents or guardians; because no woman can then be ignorant of the marriage's being abfolutely null and void; and should he meet with a woman fo ignorant, or one who pretended to be fo, it would be very difficult for him to find a parfen to mar-A ry them, or a church to be married in. I hope, I have now fhewn, Sir, that there is no folid foundation for any of the objections made against this bill; and as the Hon. gentleman himfelf contefled, that our love for our children, our compaffion for betrayed innocence, and our regard for the honour of our families, all plead ftrongly for our paling it into a law, I make no doubt of obtaining even his concurrence for our fending it to a committee; efpecially, as that respect, which we ought to have for the other houfe, feems to require our giving it a little farther confideration. [This JOURNAL to be continued in our next.] As all the SPEECHES made in the POLITICAL CLUB, are not inferted in their Journal book, ary gentleman may fend a copy or extract of what be faid upon any important debate, to the publisher of this MAGAZINE, and it shall be inferted by itself, or in its proper place. Remainder of the Extract from Dr. AD- NOTHER reafon why the blood A apt to the air there is not enriched with a due ftock of vegetable effluvia from the earth. Every fpecies of beings enjoys the best ftate of health in its proper element. Aquaticks droop by land, as land animals do by fea. B to grow foul and degenerate into a state of putrefcence. Another caufe that promotes putrefaction in the bodies of feamen is the badnefs of their provifions. Common water makes part of their provifions. Their provisions are bad when they are rancid, or putrid, or worm-eaten, which they often are, either from clofe air, or moift warm air, or time, or negligence, or unavoidable accidents. Putrid food and water promote putrefaction, because when received into our bodies, even in finall quantity, they have a power (which differs under different circumftances) of diffolving their texture, and of changing their conflituent parts into a fetid fanies like their own; as a fpark of fire, falling on combuftibles, kindles them into flame. What has been faid of putrid diet is true in a lefs degree of that which is mouldy, or eaten by worms and weevils; for every tendency to rancidity is a proportionable tendency to putrefaction, and the production of infects is an actual effect of it. When putrefaction is so far advanced in any body, as to favour, or contribute to the production of infects, a certain invifible principle (very like, perhaps, if not the fame with that fylveftrian poifonous fpirit, which is fecretly detached, and unfeen flies from vegetables in the act of fermentation) is at the fame D time let loofe in or difengaged from that body; which principle has the power of infecting or haftening corruption in other bodies. C E The fifth and laft caufe, and indeed a very material one, that gives the humours fuch a putrid difpofition, as îmmediately produces the fea fcurvy, is the white and bay falt ufed to preserve fleth for the fervice of the navy. It is true, thefe falts in a dry place, either hot or cold, refift the corruption of flesh, and of other corruptible bodies: But in a A third caufe that difpofes the fluids to moist and warm place, like a living hucorruption, may be plenitude, to which man body, they are just the reverse. That failors are very fubject, on account of both rock and fea falt in a moist and their voracity, coftiveness, and diminished warm place, like a living human body, refpiration. Their refpiration is dimi- haften the corruption of our humours, nished at fea because they feed on groffer and alfo the corruption of the folid parts food and ufe lefs exercife *, and breathe of our bodies, even of our bones, I am a moifter air there, than they do by land. fatisfied by a multitude of experiments. The extraordinary moisture of the fea The principle, by which they haften it, air leffens perfpiration by relaxing the is in many respects analogous to that poifibres of the kin. The more the skin fon already taken notice of in putrid is relaxed, the lefs matter in a given time animals and in putrid or fermenting vegewill be difcharged by it. And it is the G tables. Let it not be inferred from hence, nature of all animal fluids by confinement that the common use of these falts ought F to *The want of exercife and great dampnefs in the air are no uncommon causes of the ferry ren among land men. To one or other of these causes we may afcribe the fearbutick complaints of many students, mechanicks, and perfons living in confined marby places and near the fea. 1753. Extract from Dr. Addington, of the Sea-Scurvy. 411 to be forbid; fince a moderate degree B The cure of the fea fcurvy may be undertaken with great probability of fuccefs in all cafes except where the internal parts are unfound, or the external much mortified. The grand intentions certainly are, to remove what is redundant; and correct or remove what is putrefcent or putrid. If the patient then be on hore, the circumambient air and the fruits of the ground will prove the beft remedies. The acid exhalations and juices, with which they are fraught, con- C tinually mixing with the blood, become at once the purgers of fuperfluities and the oppofers of corruption, They purge fuperfluities, because being eagerly attracted by, and foon faturated with, the volatile alcaline falts, which ever in a putrid fcurvy abound in the body, they readily form neutral falts ; all which, whether natural or artificial, are purging. Ꭰ But if the patient be far out at fea, where he cannot have the benefit of thofe medicines which fucceed fo well by land, another method of cure, not lefs efficacious perhaps, though lefs quick, may be fafely advifed. In the first place, if he has any marks of fulness, from whatever caufe, let blood, to prevent E internal hemorrhages and other accidents. To leffen the quantity of redundant blood ftill more, I would farther advise a gentle daily purgation with feawater; which is now very juftly esteemed as a cleanfer of the inteftines, and indeed of the whole glandular fyftem. It might be well for failors, if, when they are free from the fcurvy, but have fome other complaint that indicates gentle purging, or are in perfect health, they would now and then in the morning early, perhaps twice a week, have recourfe to a draught or two of fea-water; by the timely help of which most of the bodily evils to which they are liable, efpecially their coftiveness and its confe- G quences, may be either cured or prevented. Common falt and brackish springs are either the cause of, or are hurtful in the fcurvy, because, being flow purgatives, they are apt to be confined in the body many days before they will pass it, and Salt-water is alfo ufeful as an antifeptick. But, it must be owned, its antifeptick power is fo weak, that it is to be looked upon rather as a retarder of the putrefaction of found humours, than as a corrector or fweetner of humours already putrid. But if in conjunction with the falt-water we make a prudent use of the fpirit of fea-falt, we fhall but seldom be difappointed in our hopes of a cure. I have often restored ftinking water, blood, bile, flefh, and many other putrid bodies to fweetnefs by this wonderful acid fpirit. This is that fafe and effectual corrector, which will counteract the pratrifying quality of rock and bay falt, when they have been taken in fuch large quantities as to occafion a greater diffolution in the body than the welfare of it requires. Twenty drops of this fpirit taken every day in a proper vehicle will probably fucceed with moft patients; and the expence will not amount to 4d. a year for each man. Any quantity of falt will yield about a third part of fpirit. If the patient should have ulcers on his gums, legs, or any other outward parts, or rottennefs in his bones, it may be of service to apply fea-water externally too, with a small quantity of spirit of falt add ed to it. The laft, but not the least advantage of fea-water in the fcurvy is to be gained by ufing it as a cold bath. Frequent immerfion in the fea corrects or washes away thofe innumerable putrid particles on the furface of the body, which being abforbed into the blood, would aggravate its corruption. The moft proper diet for feamen, much afflicted with the fcurvy, is the vegetable part of their provifions, fuch as bifcuit, flour, oatmeal, peafe, rice, all which, if they are good of their kind, conceal an acid that oppofes putrefaction. Flesh and fifh of every fort, whether they have or have not been falted, will, in human bodies infected with fcurvy, by an eafy and natural transition, in a few hours degenerate into a ftate of corruption. Of all fimple liquors the best in the fcurvy is fresh water, as it promotes diFff 2 geftion, * This corrector, the doctor tells us afterwards, is the spirit of fea falt. |