[19 Geo. II. c. 21, which repealed all former statutes on this subject, every labourer, sailor, or soldier profanely cursing or swearing, shall forfeit one shilling (c); every other person, under the degree of a gentleman, two shillings; and every gentleman, or person of superior rank, five shillings; to the poor of the parish wherein such offence was committed (d). And, on a second conviction, shall forfeit double, and for every subsequent offence, treble, the sum first forfeited, with all charges of conviction; and, in default of payment, shall be sent to the house of correction for ten days. Any justice of the peace may convict upon his own hearing or the testimony of one witness. And any constable or peace officer, upon his own hearing, may secure the offender and carry him before a justice, and there convict him; but the conviction must be within eight days after the committal of the offence. If the justice omits his duty, he forfeits five pounds, and the constable forty shillings.]

VI. Another offence of the description under consideration, is that of using pretended witchcraft, conjuration, enchantment, and sorcery. Our law once included in the list of crimes, that of actual witchcraft or intercourse with evil spirits and though it has now no longer a place among them, its exclusion is not to be understood as implying a denial of the possibility of such an offence. [To deny this, would be to contradict the revealed word of God in various passages both of the Old and New Testament; and the thing itself is a truth to which every nation in the world hath in its turn borne testimony; either by examples seemingly well attested, or by prohibitory laws, which at least suppose the possibility of a commerce with evil spirits.

(c) It also forms one of the articles of war contained in the Naval Discipline Act, 1866, that any person subject to that Act, who shall be guilty of profane swearing, shall be dismissed her majesty's service

with disgrace, or suffer such lesser punishment as by that Act authorized. (29 & 30 Vict. c. 109, s. 27.) (d) See a modern prosecution under this enactment, The Queen r. Scott, 4 B. & Smith, 368.

[Wherefore it seems to be the most eligible way to conclude, with an ingenious writer, that in general there has been such a thing as witchcraft, though one cannot give credit to any particular modern instance of it (e).

Our forefathers, however, were stronger believers when they enacted, by statute 33 Hen. VIII. c. 8, all witchcraft and sorcery to be felony without benefit of clergy. And again by statute 1 Jac. I. c. 12, that all persons invoking any evil spirit; or consulting, covenanting with, entertaining, employing, feeding or rewarding any evil spirit; or taking up dead bodies from their graves to be used in any witchcraft, sorcery, charm or enchantment; or killing or otherwise hurting any person by such infernal arts;— should be guilty of felony and suffer death: and that if any person should attempt, by sorcery, to discover hidden treasure, or to restore stolen goods, or to provoke unlawful love, or to hurt any man or beast, (though the same were not effected,) he, or she, should suffer imprisonment and pillory for the first offence, and death for the second. These Acts long continued in force, to the terror of all antient females in the kingdom; and many poor wretches were sacrificed thereby to the prejudice of their neighbours and their own illusions; not a few having, by some means or other, confessed the fact at the gallows. But all prosecutions for this dubious crime are now at an end: our legislature having at length followed the wise example of Louis the fourteenth in France; who thought proper by an edict to restrain the tribunals of justice from receiving informations of witchcraft (f). And accordingly it was enacted, by 9 Geo. II. c. 5, that no proceeding for the future shall be carried on against any person for witchcraft, sorcery, enchantment, or conjuration; or for charging another with any such offence.] But, by the same statute, persons who pretend to use witchcraft, tell fortunes, or discover stolen goods by skill in any occult or crafty (e) Mr. Addison, Spect. No. 117.

(ƒ) Voltaire, Siècl. Louis 14, c. 29; Mod. Un. Hist. xxv. 215.

science-were made punishable by imprisonment: and by 5 Geo. IV. c. 83, s. 4, any person who shall use subtle craft, means, or device, by palmistry (g) or otherwise, to deceive the lieges,-is to be deemed a rogue and a vagabond; and may be punished with imprisonment and hard labour (h).

VII. [A seventh species of offenders in this class, are all religious impostors; such as falsely pretend an extraordinary commission from heaven; or terrify and abuse the people with false denunciations of judgments. These, as tending to subvert all religion, by bringing it into ridicule and contempt, are punishable by the temporal courts with fine, imprisonment, and infamous corporal punishment (i).]

VIII. Simony may also be considered as an offence against religion, by reason of the sacredness of the charge which is thereby profanely bought and sold. Its nature and the penalties to which it is subject having been already described, when we treated of the endowments and provisions of the Church (k), it will be unnecessary to recur to them in this place, and we shall pass on to consider

IX. [Profanation of the Lord's Day, (commonly, but improperly, called sabbath breaking,) which is another offence of the class now in question. It is unquestionable that the keeping one day in seven holy, as a time of relaxation and refreshment, as well as for public worship, is of admirable service to a state, considered merely as a civil institution. It humanizes, by the help of conversation and society, the manners of the lower classes; which would otherwise degenerate into a sordid ferocity, and savage selfishness of spirit. It enables the industrious workman to pursue his occupation in the ensuing week vide post, p. 259.

(9) See Monck v. Hilton, Law Rep., 2 Ex. D. 268.

(h) As to rogues and vagabonds,

(i) Hawk. P. C. b. 1, c. 5, s. 3. (k) Vide vol. II. pp. 715–746.

[with health and cheerfulness; and it imprints on the minds of the people that sense of their duty to God so necessary to make them good citizens, but which yet would be worn out and effaced by an unremitted continuance of labour without any stated times of recalling them to the worship of their Maker. Accordingly, the laws of King Athelstan forbade all merchandizing on the Lord's day, under very severe penalties (); and by the statute 27 Henry VI. c. 5, no fair or market shall be held on Good Fridays or on any Sunday except the four Sundays in harvest, or for necessary victual, on pain of forfeiting the goods exposed to sale (m). Again, by statute 1 Car. I. c. 1, no persons shall assemble, out of their own parishes, for any sport whatever upon this day; nor in their parishes shall use any bull, or bear, baiting, interludes, plays, or other unlawful exercises or pastimes,-on pain that every offender shall pay three shillings and fourpence to the poor.] Also, by statute 29 Car. II. c. 7, no tradesman, artificer, workman, labourer, or other person whatever, is allowed to do any work of their ordinary calling upon the Lord's day,-works of necessity and charity only excepted, -on pain that every person, of fourteen years, so offending, shall forfeit five shillings. And, by the same Act, no person shall publicly expose to sale any wares whatever upon the Lord's day, upon pain of forfeiting the goods; nor any drover, or the like, travel or come into his inn or lodging, upon pain of forfeiting twenty shillings; nor any person serve or execute any process, (except for treason, felony or breach of the peace): and such service or execution, if made, shall be void to all intents and purposes whatever (n). Moreover, by 21 Geo. III. c. 49, any house

(C. 24.

(m) The exception as to Sundays in harvest time is repealed by 13 & 14 Vict. c. 23.

(n) By the 34 & 35 Vict. c. 87 (continued by the 45 & 46 Vict. c. 64, to 31st December, 1883), no VOL. IV.

prosecution under this statute of Car. 2 is to be instituted unless by the written consent of the chief officer of police, or of two justices, or a stipendiary magistrate. There are also enactments with the same object of securing the proper ob

R

which shall be used for public entertainment or public debate on the Lord's day, and to which persons shall be admitted by the payment of money, shall be deemed a disorderly house (o): and subject to the punishment which the law provides in the case of houses of that description (p). And, lastly, there are enactments prohibiting under a penalty the sale of intoxicating liquors in publichouses and other licensed premises within certain hours, on any Sunday, Christmas-day, or Good Friday, unless to a lodger in the house, or to a bonâ fide traveller (q).

X. The offences already noticed are against religion, so far as its outward forms come within the sanction of municipal law; but before we proceed to other offences ranging themselves under the general heading of this chapter, we must notice as an offence against morals [the infamous crime against nature, committed either with man or beast; a crime which ought to be strictly and impartially proved, and then as strictly and impartially punished. But it is an offence of so dark a nature, so easily charged, and the negative so difficult to be proved, that (as observed elsewhere in reference to the crime of rape) the accusation should be clearly made out; for, if false, it deserves a punishment inferior only to that of the crime itself (r).

servance of Sunday, which refer to carriers (3 Car. 1, c. 2); to fishcarriages (2 Geo. 3, c. 15); to bakers (34 Geo. 3, c. 61; 50 Geo. 3, c. 73, s. 3; 1 & 2 Geo. 4, c. 50, s. 11; 3 Geo. 4, c. cxvi, s. 16); to watermen (11 Will. 3, c. 24, s. 13; 7 & 8 Geo. 4, c. lxxv.); to killing game (1 & 2 Will. 4, c. 32, 8. 3). And see, as to the construction of statute 29 Car. 2, c. 7, Sandiman v. Breach, 7 Barn. & Cress. 96; R. v. Whitnash, ib. 596; Peate v. Dicken, 5 Tyr. 116; Scarfe v. Morgan, 1 H. & H. 292; Beaumont v. Brengeri, 5 C. B. 301.

(0) As to remitting penalties and forfeitures incurred under this Act, see 38 & 39 Vict. c. 80, and the following cases-' -Terry v. Brighton Aquarium Co., Law Rep., 10 Q. B. 306; Warner v. The same, ib. 10 Exch. 291.

(p) As to disorderly houses, vide post, p. 247. As to the construction of this enactment in reference to the holding of religious services, the admission to which is by money, see Baxter v. Langley, Law Rep., 4 C. P. 21.

(2) See 37 & 38 Vict. c. 49, s. 3. () Vide sup. p. 87.