within the house, mill, stall, shop, &c. of any miller, mealman, or baker, and which shall appear to have been placed there for the purpose of adulteration, renders him liable to similar penalties.

Other articles besides those which have been mentioned are adulterated to a great extent; but perhaps the remedy for the evil is not unwisely left to the people themselves, who probably are less likely to be imposed upon when depending on the exercise of their own discrimination, than if a commission of public functionaries were appointed, whose duty should consist in investigating as a branch of medical jurisprudence whatever related to the subject of adulteration. The interference of the government in this country with the practice of adulteration, except in the case of bread and drugs [APOTHECARIES' COMPANY], has evidently had no other object than the improvement of the revenue.

Adulteration and the deceitful making up of commodities appear to have frequently attracted the attention of the legislature in the sixteenth century, and several acts were passed for restraining offences of this nature. The act 23 Eliz. c. 8, prohibits under penalties the practice of mixing bees'-wax with rosin, tallow, turpentine, or other spurious ingredient. The following acts have reference chiefly to frauds in the making up of various manufactured products :3 Hen. VIII. c. 6; 23 Hen. VIII. c. 17; 1 Eliz. c. 12; 3 & 4 Edw. VI. c. 2; 5 & 6 Edw. VI. c. 6; 5 & 6 Edw. VI.

c. 23.

ADULTERY (from the Latin adulterium) according to English law is the sexual connection of a man, whether married or single, with another man's wife; or of a married man with an unmarried woman. If both the adulterer and the adulteress are married, it is sometimes called double adultery; if one only is married, it is called single adultery.

Adultery was punished by the Jewish law with death; but the kind of adultery which by the Mosaic law constituted a capital crime was not every violation of chastity of which a married person, whether husband or wife, might be guilty; but only the sexual connection of a wife

with any other man than her husband. This distinction was analogous to the whole system of the Jewish marriagelaw; by which the husband and wife had not an equal right to restrain each other from infidelity; for the husband might marry other wives, or take concubines or slaves to his bed, without giving his first wife a legal right to complain of any infringement of her matrimonial rights.

By the Athenian law, the husband might kill the adulterer, if he detected him in the act of dishonouring him. (Lysias, Oration on the Death of Eratosthenes.) The husband at Athens might also prosecute the adulterer by law; or he might, if he pleased, receive from him a sum of money by way of compensation, without instituting any legal process. It appears that it was not adultery at Athens for a married man to have sexual intercourse with an unmarried woman, or with any woman who prostituted herself, or was in the habit of selling anything in the public

market.

By the Romans adultery was defined to be "sexual intercourse with another man's wife." It was adultery whether the male was married or not; but the sexual connection of any man with a woman who was not married, was not adultery. It seems that the old Roman law allowed the husband and kinsmen (the husband's kinsmen) to sit in judgment on the adulterous wife. (Dionysius Halicarn. Antiq. Rom. ii. 25; Suetonius, Tiberius, c. 35.) The Julia Lex on adultery was passed in the time of Augustus (perhaps about B.C. 17). It repealed some old rules of law on the same subject, with which we are not acquainted, and introduced new rules. The Julian law allowed the father, whether the natural or adoptive father, to kill the adulterer and adulteress in certain cases which were laid down by the law; the husband also could in certain cases kill the adulterer when he caught him in the act, but not the wife. If the husband kept his wife after he had discovered an act of adultery committed by her, he was guilty of the offence called Lenocinium. Sixty days were allowed for the husband or the father, in whose power the adulteress was, for commencing legal proceedings. It appears

from the terms of the law that the sixty days were to be reckoned from the day of divorce, for the husband was bound to divorce his wife as soon as the fact of the adultery was known to him. After the sixty days were expired, any other person might accuse the adulteress. A wife convicted of adultery lost half of her dos, and the third part of any other property that she had, and was banished (relegata) to some miserable island. The adulterer lost half of his property, and was also banished. The law did not inflict the punishment of death; those cases in which death was inflicted, under the early emperors, were extraordinary, and were either irregular exercises of power, or the charge of treason (majestas) was either directly or by implication added to that of adultery. A constitution of Constantine (Cod. | ix. tit. 30) made adultery a capital offence in the male; but perhaps the genuineness of the constitution may be doubted. Justinian (Novel. 134, c. 10) confirmed the legislation of Constantine, whatever it was, and added confinement in a convent as the punishment of the adulteress, after she had been whipped: The husband might, if he liked, take her out of the convent within two years, and cohabit with her again; but if he did not, or if he died in the two years, her head was shaved and she was compelled to spend the rest of her life in the convent. The same Novel also imposed pecuniary penalties both on the adulterer and adulteress The provisions of the Julian law are collected from various sources. (Dig. 48. tit. 5; Paulus, Sentent. Recept. ii. tit. 26.) By the canon law, which is now more or less part of the law of most Christian countries, adultery is defined to be the violation of conjugal fidelity; and, consequently, the incontinency of the wife and husband stand upon the same foundation. Hence arises the distinction above alluded to between a single and double adultery.

Double and single adultery are punishable with various degrees of severity in most of the countries of modern Europe; but it is believed that in none of them, at the present day, is either of these offences capital.

There are some traces of the punish

ment of adultery as a crime in very early periods of the history of English law. Lord Coke says, that in ancient times it was within the jurisdiction of the sheriff's tourns and court-leet, and was punished by fine and imprisonment (3 Inst. 306): but at the present day, adultery is not the subject of a criminal prosecution in the temporal courts, and the cognizance of the offence is confined to the Ecclesiastical Courts, according to the rules of the canon law. Instances of criminal prosecutions in the spiritual courts for adultery are extremely rare; and if instituted to the conviction of the parties, the infliction of a slight fine or penance "for the benefit of the offender's soul" (in salutem anima), as it was termed, would be the only result. In the year 1604 (2 James I.) a bill was brought into Parliament "for the better repressing the detestable crime of adultery." This bill went through a committee in the House of Lords; but, upon being reported, it was suggested to the House that the object contemplated by the measure was the private interest of some individuals, and not the public good; whereupon the bill was dropped. (Parl. History, vol. v. p. 88.) During the Commonwealth, adultery, in either sex, was made a capital felony (Scobel's Acts, part ii. p. 121), but at the Restoration this law was discontinued.

Adultery, however, comes under the cognizance of the temporal courts in England as an injury to the husband. Thus a man may maintain an action against the seducer of his wife, in which he may recover damages as a compensation for the loss of her services and affections in consequence of the adultery. For the particular rules and proceedings in this action, see Selwyn's Nisi Prius, title "Adultery." But the legal nature of the union of husband and wife does not give the wife the same rights as the husband, and she has no remedy by the common or statute law in case of the husband's sexual intercourse with another woman: she has no redress for his misconduct in the ordinary courts. Her only remedy is in the Ecclesiastical Courts, where she can obtain a separation from her husband, but not a complete divorce. The hus

band, after obtaining a verdict against the adulterer in a court of law, and a sentence of separation by the Ecclesiastical Court, may obtain a divorce from his wife by Act of Parliament; and in no other way. [DIVORCE.]

It is not easy to define the law of Scotland relative to adultery. Heavy penalties were levelled against it by various acts of the sixteenth century, and at last by the Act 1563, c. 74, it was ordained that "all notour or manifest committers of adulterie, in onie time to cum, sall be punished with all the rigour unto the death, as weil the woman as the man, doer and committer of the samin:" and certain criterions were established for distinguishing the notorious and habitual practice of the crime which was thus punishable with death, from those isolated acts which were visited by the common law with a less punishment. The latest instance of sentence of death awarded for adultery is, perhaps, the case of Margaret Thomson, 28th May, 1677. All the statutes on the subject have, according to the peculiar practice of Scotland, expired by long desuetude. On the other hand, however, if the public prosecutor should think fit to prosecute for adultery, the High Court of Justiciary has authority to count it within the class of offences punishable at discretion. Such prosecutions are however unknown. In the seventeenth and the commencement of the eighteenth century, the church courts made themselves very active in requiring the civil magistrate to adjudicate in this offence; but this means of punishment was abolished by the 10th Anne, c. 7, § 10, which prohibited civil magistrates from giving effect to ecclesiastical censures. Of late years the doctrine has been admitted by Scottish lawyers, that the seduction of a wife is a good ground for an action of damages; but such prosecutions are wholly unknown in practice. Adultery is a good ground for an action of divorce. [DIVORCE.] (Hume On Crimes, i. 452-458; Stair's Institute, b. 1, tit. 4, §7; Erskine's Institute, b. 1, tit. 6, $ 43.)

the act of adultery in his own house. The punishment of a woman convicted of adultery is imprisonment for a period of not less than three months, and not exceeding two years; but the prosecution can only be instituted at the suit of the husband; and the sentence may be abated on his consenting to take back the wife (§ 337, 337). The paramour of a wife convicted of adultery is liable to imprisonment for not less than three months, or for a period not exceeding two years; and to a penalty of not less than 100 francs, or not exceeding 2000 francs (§ 338). A husband convicted, on complaint of the wife, of keeping a concubine in his own house, is liable to penalties of not less than 100 or not more than 2000 francs; and under these circumstances he cannot institute a suit against his wife for adultery (§ 339).

In the State of New York, the Court of Chancery is empowered to pronounce a divorce à vinculo matrimonii in the case of adultery, and in no other case, upon the complaint either of the husband or the wife. The process is by bill filed by the complaining party. [DIVORCE.] If a divorce is pronounced, the defendant is disabled from marrying during the lifetime of the other party. Adultery appears to be a ground of divorce in all the American States, so far as can be collected from the statement in Kent (Commentaries, vol. ii.). A case is mentioned by Kent as decided in New Jersey, in which it was adjudged that a married man was not guilty of adultery in having carnal connection with an unmarried woman. By a statute of North Carolina, adultery is an indictable offence. In Alabama both adultery and fornication are indictable offences in persons living together in adultery or fornication. The law of Massachusetts also punishes adultery and fornication as indictable offences.

Du Cange (Gloss. Med. et Infim. Latin.) contains much curious matter on the punishment of adultery among various nations of the middle ages.