friends) in the discomfort of foreign hotels, or the still less endurable desolation of English inns, as if to strain to the utmost the strength of their newly made bonds.” In this month of homeless misery we have the barbarism of the past surviving in a symbol almost as disagreeable as the reality. 5. The marriage customs we have spoken of are mainly survivals of the capture system, which in the progress of civilization passed into the purchase system. We do not doubt that now-a-days some marry on principle and from pure love and affection; but the purchase system largely characterizes the present grade of civilization. Of this system there are two kinds, the one antique and homely, and the other modern and refined. The antique and homely way was to pay hard money to parents or guardians for the lady. This is still the custom in many parts of the world, and it was the custom both in France and in England at no very distant date. Our modern method of purchase is much more refined. Let a man who is marriageable have plenty of money, and almost any one of a score of girls round about is ready to accept his hand. In cases of this sort the man purchases the girl—the girl literally selling herself for money. If men still purchase wives, it is equally common for women to purchase husbands. Let a girl inherit a fortune, and however overlooked she may have been hitherto she now becomes the belle of the place. Marriageable men in hundreds are thinking about her; letters full of her praises burden the local letter-carrier, and crowds of prudent youths take a fancy to the kind of gospel preached in the church she attends. “Be a lassie e'er sae black, Gin she ha'e the name o'siller; Set her up on Tintock tap, The wind will blaw a man till her.” In such cases the girl purchases the husband—he literally selling himself for her money. II. Survivals in Opinions and Laws. 1. I come now to consider the second and more important class of survivals, consisting of ideas and opinions and laws, which, originating in the rudest states of society, have lasted on into our times. The primitive slavery to which women were subject is not quite extinct. No doubt their legal and social position in civilized countries now-a-days is an improvement upon what it was in the old times. Not a few married women, exceptionally fortunate in their husbands, feel they could not be freer or better situated than they are at present. Such, however, should be reminded that they are what they are, not by law but by grace—by the grace of their lords, by the favour of their legal masters. The old slavery, modified and mitigated in some respects, still continues, but disguised under the name of the subordination of the one sex