in New York in 1857. One Dr. Burdell lived
in a house which was his own property, at a few
paces' distance from a much-frequented street.
He resided on the ground floor; in the story
above, there lodged a woman named Cunningham,
with whom it was asserted that Burdell
had been too intimate. She was visited by
several persons, particularly by one Eckel, who
was supposed to be Burdell's successor in her
affections. The woman had repeatedly and
earnestly solicited the doctor to marry her;
he had always refused. Nevertheless, as he
was supposed to be worth, some twelve or
sixteen thousand pounds, the woman Cunningham
was accused of having planned his murder,
after having taken previous steps to secure
the inheritance. As the facts relating to the
murder were never judicially proved, we can
give no more than the substance of the
indictment, according to which the woman
Cunningham went one evening, in company with a
man supposed to be Eckel, to the house of an
obscure Protestant minister to whom they were
quite unknown. The man wore a false beard
the better to disguise himself; he stated his
name to be Burdell, and the couple required
to be united in marriage. The only witness was
a young daughter of the woman Cunningham.
The minister, without taking any trouble to
ascertain the identity of the parties, married
them in a few minutes, under the names declared
to him. No registration of the marriage was
made; no signatures of the parties were given;
consequently, the only trace which remained of
this culpable act was the certificate which the
bride and the pretended bridegroom obtained
from the complaisant minister. Not a syllable
of all this was known in Dr. Burdell's house.

Two or three months afterwards, New York
was startled by the murder of Burdell in his
room one evening in January. Cunningham
and Eckel were arrested; great inquiries were
made, but nothing was discovered. The prisoners
were discharged.

If matters had rested here, the crime would
appear to have been committed without any
adequate motive; for the marriage would only
have given the female culprit a right to a jointure,
which was of comparatively trifling importance;
but the marriage was necessary, to support the
assumption of a pregnancy which should supply
a false heir to the unfortunate Burdell. But
in consequence of measures skilfully taken, the
attempted fraud was judicially proved.

Suppose American marriages to have been
environed by a portion only of the formalities
and guarantees required in France—only with
those enacted in England—and the murder would
assuredly have been prevented. Let notice be
published in the official locality belonging to the
parish; let the identity of the parties be ascertained;
let the celebration of the ceremony in
broad day be authenticated by the presence of
known witnesses of full age; let the contract
be registered in the local archives; and the idea
of such a crime as this could not enter the
thoughts of the worst sharper.

In spite of the extreme facilities for contracting
marriage in the United States, there nevertheless
exists a most characteristic prohibition.
In divers States—say in the majority—the
marriage of whites with Indians, negroes, and
mulattoes, is prohibited, whatever may be the
degree of fairness of the latter's skin. But even
where the statute is silent—nay, even where it
is favourable to this sort of alliances—the force
of prejudice is so strong that nobody has the
moral courage to brave it. Marriages of the
kind do sometimes take place, but always
among the lowest of the population; and even
then it is not always safe for the husband to
remain on the scene of the marriage; for amongst
the populace the prejudice of race is as deeply
rooted as in the upper classes. It is curious that
of late years more white women than white men
have contracted marriage with persons of colour
in two free States. But the circumstance itself is
of such rare occurrence, that no conclusion can
be drawn from these exceptional instances.

And the matrimonial union of slaves—what
of that? Considered either as a chattel or as a
responsible being before God and before the
law, it would seem that that thinking chattel
ought to be authorised to contract a legitimate
marriage, in order better to adapt his life to
ideas of social and family duty, the two grand
elements of civilisation. But it is no such
thing; no man of colour, in a state of slavery,
has the right to contract a legal marriage, either
with another slave or with a free person. The
master has always the right to break the
connexion, how strong or slight soever it be, which
the slave has formed, even with the master's
consent; and, as the law refuses to regulate
such connexions, there is no recognised
paternity. The man and the woman, the father,
the mother, and the children, may all be separated
at the master's will.

The law of divorce is not the same in all the
States of the Union, but there is a great
tendency to adopt similar reasons for granting
divorces. Separation from bed and board, à
mensâ et thoro, finds little favour there. It is
considered immoral, in consequence of its leaving,
according to Lord Howell's expressions, a
wife without a husband, and a husband without
a wife. It is celibacy in matrimony. It offers
great temptations to either party to go astray,
and punishes the innocent more than the guilty.
For divorce proper, there are divers reasons
admitted by the legislatures of divers states.
Among them are, voluntary desertion for one,
two, three, or five years; prolonged absence for
five years; idiocy or mental derangement; marriage
with a negro, an Indian, or a mulatto;
acts of cruelty or abuse committed by one of
the couple on the other; a great misapprehension
of duty towards the helpmate; an habitual
state of drunkenness, or the abuse of opium;
imprisonment for crimes specified by the local
statutes; a refusal to provide the wife with
sufficient means of subsistence; a refusal on
the part of the wife to follow her husband when
he changes his residence; disorders in the