of the People of Victoria. 123 



Most imdoubtedly the circumstances of our population — at 

 least of a large portion of it — more nearly a])proach the 

 condition of the Californians than that of the inhabitants of 

 the British Islands. Is their experience, it may he asked, 

 altogether unworthy of our consideration ? 



AA'ith reference to the policy or justice of placino; on the 

 guilty a prohibition from again marrying, it is possible that 

 cases may occiu* where to do so would ])rove a hardship, or 

 cause a life of crime to be the sequence of a moment of guilt ; 

 but the most salutary contrivances have their drawbacks. 

 The punishment we inflict for a small theft, hampers the pro- 

 gress of the reformed and hardworking man throughout his 

 after-life, making him perhaps in the end a burden on society. 

 The fi'audulent bankrupt is refused permission ever again to 

 enter into trade ; and probably continues a rogue and a 

 pauper for the remainder of his life. If, therefore, for a 

 breach of the contract between merchant and merchant a 

 severe restriction is imposed, surely it seems but consistent 

 that a similar course should be adopted towards those who 

 violate the most important contract which legislation can 

 foster. It seems but a simple duty to protect the unwary 

 from those whose unfitness to fill the position of husband or 

 wife has been established ; and it does not follow tliat be- 

 cause people are relieved from the burden of a dangerous 

 or odious contract, that they who rendered its dissolution an 

 act of justice, should be allowed to form a new engagement, 

 or that the law should step in to place those who have shame- 

 lessly violated one engagement, in a position to violate a 

 second ; neither does it follow, because the injured call for a 

 measure of relief, that the opposite extreme should be rushed 

 into, and that, in oui* zeal for facilitating divorce, we should 

 also legislate in favour of evil-doers. 



Hestrietions on the re-entering of guilty parties into the 

 maiTiage state, similar to those to which attention has been 

 directed, are not without other parallels. Previous to the 

 present law of the United Kingdom, there was an order of 

 the House of Lords that every divorce bill, on account of 

 adultery, should contain a clause prohibiting the marriage of 

 offending parties with each other, and this clause was main- 

 tained in one very flagrant case. The Code Napoh'on re- 

 stricted the liberty of divorce which had been introduced in 

 the earlier revolutionary period, and amongst other restraints 

 prohibited a woman from contracting a new marriage until 

 the expiration of ten months from the dissolution of the 



