the same and £200, and be imprisoned for twelve months, and until the forfeiture be paid. The 22 Geo. III. c. 60. subjects any person who shall entice or encourage any artificer employed in printing callicoes, cottons, muslins, or linens, to leave the kingdom to the penalty of £500, and one year's imprisonment, and for a second offence £1000, and two years imprisonment; persons exporting, or attempting to do so, engines or implements used in that manufacture, to the penalty of £500, and forfeiture of such implements, &c. and captains of ships, or customhouse officers, conniving at these offences, are subject to the same fine, and are rendered incapable of holding an office under the crown. The 25 Geo. III. c. 67. § 6. and 26 Geo. III. c. 89. make similar regulations as to the iron and steel manufactures. CHAPTER THE THIRTEENTH. OF OFFENCES AGAINST THE PUBLIC 111 Offences against the PUBLIC HEALTH, are 112 having the plague on board, and con⚫ cealing it, &c. or, escaping from the lazarets, felony, death. HE fourth species of offences, more especially affecting The fourmonwealth, are such as are against the public health of the nation; a concern of the highest importance, and for the preservation of which there are in many countries special magistrates or curators appointed. 1. THE first of these offences is a felony; but by the blessing of Providence for more than a century past, incapable of being committed in this nation. For by statute 1 Jac. I. c. 31, it is enacted, that if any person infected with the plague, or dwelling in any infected house, be commanded by the mayor or constable, or other head officer of his town or vill, to keep his house, and shall venture to disobey it; he may be inforced by the watchmen appointed on such melancholy occasions, to obey such necessary command: and, if any hurt ensue by such inforcement, the watchmen are thereby indemnified. And farther, if such person so commanded to confine himself goes abroad, and converses in company, if he has no plague sore upon him, he shall be punished as a vagabond by whipping, and be bound to his good behaviour: but, if he has any infectious sore upon him uncured, he then shall shall be guilty of felony. By the statute 26 Geo. II. c. 6, (explained and amended by 29 Geo. II. c. 8.) the method of performing quarantine, or forty days probation, by ships coming from infected countries, is put in a much more regu→ lar and effectual order than formerly; and masters of ships, coming from infected places, and disobeying the directions there given, or having the plague on board and concealing it, are guilty of felony without benefit of clergy. The same penalty also attends persons escaping from the lazarets, or places wherein quarantine is to be performed; and officers and watchmen neglecting their duty; and persons conveying goods or letters from ships performing quarantine (74). [162] some provisions, fine, imprisonment, pillory, &c. 2. A SECOND, but much inferior species of offence against Selling unwholepublic health is the selling of unwholesome provisions. To prevent which the statute 51 Hen. III. st. 6, and the ordinance for bakers, c. 7, prohibit the sale of corrupted wine, contagious or unwholesome flesh, or flesh that is bought of a Jew; under pain of amercement for the first offence, pillory for the second, fine and imprisonment for the third, and abjuration of the town for the fourth. And by the statute 12 Car. II. adulterating wine is c. 25. § 11, any brewing or adulteration of wine is punished punished with spe with the forfeiture of £100, if done by the wholesale mer chant; and £40, if done by the vintner or retail trader. These are all the offences which may properly be said to respect the public health. V. THE 113 (74) The above acts have been repealed by 45 Geo. III. c. 10, which enacts, among other things, that if the commander of a ship coming from a place visited with the plague, or other infectious disease, or having any person on board actually infected, and knowingly conceal the same, he shall be guilty of felony without benefit of clergy. And, if during quarantine, he quit the ship VOL. IV. M himself, or allow any other Quarantine has been further 114 Offences against the PUBLIC POLICE AND tion; [ 163 ] V. THE last species of offences which especially affect the commonwealth are those against the public police and economy. By the public police and economy I mean the due regulation and domestic order of the kingdom: whereby the individuals of the state, like members of a well-governed family, are bound to conform their general behaviour to the rules of propriety, good neighbourhood, and good manners; and to be decent, industrious, and inoffensive in their respective stations. This head of offences must therefore be very miscellaneous, as it comprizes all such crimes as especially affect public society, and are not comprehended under any of the four preceding species. These amount, some of them to felony, and others to misdemesnors only. Among the former are, 115 Solemnizing a clan- 1. THE offence of clandestine marriages; for by the statute destine marriage is felony, transporta- 26 Geo. II. c. 33. 1. To solemnize marriage in any other place besides a church, or public chapel wherein banns have been usually published (75), except by licence from the archbishop of Canterbury; and, 2. To solemnize marriage in such church or chapel without due publication of banns, or licence obtained from a proper authority;-do both of them not only render the marriage void, but subject the person solemnizing it to felony, punished by transportation for fourteen years: as, by three former statutes 2, he and his assistants and to make a false were subject to a pecuniary forfeiture of £100. 3. To make a false entry in a marriage-register: to alter it when made; to forge, or counterfeit, such entry, or a marriage licence; to cause or procure, or act or assist in such forgery; to utter the same as true, knowing it to be counterfeit; or to destroy or procure the destruction of any register, in order to vacate entry in the marriage-register, &c. is felony, death. (a) 6 & 7 W. III. c. 6. 7 & 8 W. III. c. 35. 10 Ann. e. 19. § 176. (75) If a marriage be solemnized in a church or chapel which has been built upon a new scite since August 1808, the clergyman, if he have not any licence, subjects himself to transportation for fourteen years, and the marriage is void *. *See 1 vol, page 439, note 101. any marriage, or subject any person to the penalties of this act; all these offences, knowingly and wilfully committed, subject the party to the guilt of felony without benefit of clergy. 2. ANOTHER felonious offence, with regard to this holy Bigamy and poly- 116 'estate of matrimony, is what some have corruptly called bi- gamy are felonies, gamy, which properly signifies being twice married; but is more justly denominated polygamy, or having a plurality of wives at once. Such second marriage, living the former husband or wife, is simply void, and a mere nullity, by the ecclessiastical law of England: and yet the legislature has thought it just to make it felony, by reason of its being so great a violation of the public economy and decency of a well-ordered state. For polygamy can never be endured under any rational civil establishment, whatever specious reasons may be urged for it by the eastern nations, the fallaciousness of which has been fully proved by many sensible writers: but in northern countries the very nature of the climate seems to reclaim against it; it never having obtained in this part of the world, even from the time of our German ancestors, who, as Tacitus informs us", "prope soli barbarorum singulis ux"oribus contenti sunt." It is therefore punished by the laws both of antient and modern Sweden with death. And with us in England it is enacted by statute 1 Jac. I. c. 11, that if any person, being married, do afterwards marry again, the former husband or wife being alive, it is felony; but within the (b) 3 Inst. 88. Bigamy, according to the canonists, consisted in marrying two virgins successively, one after the death of the other, or in once marrying a widow. Such were esteemed incapable of orders, &c.; and by a canon of the council of Lyons, A. D. 1274, held under pope Gregory X. were omni privilegio clericali nudati et coercioni fori secularis addicti.(6 Decretal. l. 12.) This canon was adopted and explained in England, by statute 4 Edw. I. st. 3. c. 5, and bigamy thereupon became no uncom mon counterplea to the claim of the benefit of clergy. (M. 40 Edw. III. 42. M. 11 Hen. IV. 11. 48. M. 13 Hen. IV. 6. Staunf. P. C. 134.) The cognizance of the plea of bigamy was declared by statute 18 Edw. III. st. 3. c. 2, to belong to the court christian, like that of bastardy. But by stat. 1 Edw. VI. c. 12. § 16, bigamy was declared to be no longer an impediment to the claim of clergy. See Dal. 21. Dyer 201. Mor. Germ. 18. (d) Stiernh. de jure Sueon. l. 3. c. 2. (c) De [164] |