370 
of Lower Hindostan, they are used for the distil- 
lation of spirituous liquors. An expressed oil is 
obtained from the olive-shaped seeds of the five- 
celled fruit of Bassia longifolia, and is used by 
the common people of India, for burning in 
lamps, for the making of soap, and as a substitute 
for ghee. A similar produce of the Nepaul spe- 
cies is alluded to in its specific name of butter- 
bearing. The juice of the bark of the long- 
leaved species is prescribed by Indian practition- 
ers in cases of rheumatism. The timber is used 
for house-building, for doors, windows, and other 
purposes. 
BASTARD. The Romans distinguished two 
kinds of natural children—nothi, the issue of 
concubinage, and spurii, the children of prosti- 
tutes ; the former could inherit from the mother, 
and were entitled to support from the father ; the 
latter had no claims whatever to support. Js non 
habet patrem, cur pater esi populus. The Athenians 
treated all bastards with extreme rigour. By the 
laws of Solon, they were denied the rights of citi- 
zenship. A law of Pericles ordered the sale of 
5,000 bastards as slaves. What rendered these 
regulations more severe was, that not only the 
issue of concubinage and adultery, but all chil- 
dren whose parents were not both Athenians, 
were considered bastards at Athens. Thus 
Themistocles, whose mother was a native of 
Halicarnassus, was deemed a bastard. The law, 
as might be expected, was often set aside by the 
influence of powerful citizens. Pericles himself 
had it repealed in favour of his child by Aspasia, 
after he had lost his legitimate children by the 
plague. The condition of bastards has been dif- 
ferent in different periods of modern history. 
Among the Goths and Franks, they were per- 
mitted to inherit from the father. Thiery, the 
natural son of Clovis, inherited a share of his 
father’s conquests. William the Conqueror, na- 
tural son of Robert I., duke of Normandy, and 
of Arlette, daughter of a furrier of Falaise, in- 
herited his father’s dominions. He called him- 
self Willemus, cognomento Batardus. The cele- 
brated Dunois styled himself, in his letters, ‘ the 
bastard of Orleans.’ In Spain, bastards have al- 
ways been capable of inheriting. The bastardy 
of Henry of Transtamare did not prevent his 
accession to the throne of Castile. In France, 
the condition of bastards was formerly very dif- 
ferent in the different provinces. Since the re- 
volution, it has been regulated in a uniform 
manner by the general law of the kingdom. The 
Code civil thus fixes their rights: If the father or 
mother leave legitimate descendants, the bastard 
is entitled to one-third of the portion he would 
have inherited had he been a lawful child; if the 
father or mother die without descendants, but 
leave ascendants, or brothers or sisters, then he 
is entitled to one-half of such a portion; if the 
father or mother leave no ascendants nor de- 
scendants, nor brothers nor sisters, he is entitled 
to three-quarters of such a portion; and if the 
BASTARD, 
father or mother leave no relations within the 
degrees of succession, he is entitled to the whole 
property. These regulations do not apply to the 
issue of an incestuous or adulterous connexion. 
The law allows no civil privileges to individuals 
who owe their existence to the violation of human 
and divine laws; it grants them only support. 
According to the ancient customs, the bastards 
of kings, acknowledged by their fathers, were 
princes; those of princes were gentlemen. Sev- 
eral distinguished men, and fabulous heroes, 
have been bastards — William, who conquered 
England ; Dunois, who delivered France; the 
duke of Venddme, the duke of Berwick, the mar- 
shal Saxe; Bacchus, Hercules, and Romulus. 
By the common law of England, a child born 
after marriage, however soon, is legitimate, or at 
least he is presumed to be so; for one born in 
wedlock, and long enough after the marriage to 
admit of the period of gestation, may still be 
proved illegitimate, in case of absence and non- 
access of the husband, and under some other cir- 
cumstances. According to the common law, a 
bastard is not the heir of any one; and, on the 
other hand, his only heirs are his children born 
in wedlock, and their descendants. According to 
the Roman law, one born out of wedlock might 
be legitimated by subsequent marriage and ac- 
knowledgment of his parents. In 1236, the Eng- 
lish prelates proposed the introduction of the 
Roman law, in this respect, into England, to 
which the nobility made the celebrated reply, 
Nolumus leges Anglie mutare,—“ we are unwilling 
to change the laws of England.” 
The principal statutes wholly or partly in force 
on the subject of bastardy before the 14th of 
August, 1834, were 18 Eliz. cap.3; 7 Jac. I. cap. 
4; 6 Geo. II. cap. 31; 35 Geo. III. cap. 101; 49 
Geo. III. cap. 68; 50 Geo. III. cap. 51; 54 Geo. 
III. cap. 170. The only object of affiliation as 
recognised by these enactments is indemnity to 
the parish for the charges of maintenance of a 
bastard. Ulterior views of compensating the 
woman for the injury inflicted on her, or punish- 
ing seduction by throwing a burthen on the 
father, are not anywhere to be discovered. In 
the whole of the law, as it existed prior to 
the 4 and 5 Will. LV. cap. 76, there is no trace of 
those enactments for the punishment of seduc- 
tion, and that compassionate regard for the frailty 
of the weaker sex which the Poor-law amend- 
ment act is by many persons supposed to have 
so mercilessly and recklessly blotted out of the 
statute-book. “ That statute,” says Sir Edmund 
Head, whose report on the law of bastardy we 
are now abridging, “ removed certain penalties 
from the mothers of chargeable bastards, and on 
the other hand imposed on them obligations to 
which they were not formerly subject. It abol- 
ished the punishment of imprisonment for hav- 
ing an illegitimate child chargeable to a parish ; 
and by causing the child to follow the settlement 
of its mother, conferred a still greater boon upon 
