Democracy and Liberty. William Edward Hartpole Lecky

doctrine of Adam Smith

       Arguments against legislative interference with acts not directly injurious to others

       True as a general rule, but the prevailing tendency is to multiply exceptions

       Examples of them in English law—How far law strengthens morals

       Grounds on which laws suppressing immoral acts were originally proposed

       Gambling

       Craving for excitement the secret of its popularity

       An increasing evil

       Capriciousness of English law in dealing with it

       Suppression of public gambling-houses

       Intoxicating Drink

       Difficulties of legislating on this subject

       Drunkenness not an increasing evil

       Largely due to bad houses and bad cooking

       To unhealthy or excessive labour

       To the absence of other tastes and pleasures

       To the want of provident habits

       To noxious adulteration

       Judicious taxation can encourage sobriety

       Distinction to be drawn in temperance legislation

       Should simple drunkenness be treated as a crime?

       Drunkenness sometimes preventible, sometimes not

       Drunkenness a disease—Its medical treatment

       American views of the subject

       Detention of inebriates in retreats—The Commission of 1893

       Inutility of short sentences—Proposed reformatory treatment of drunkenness

       Law of Massachusetts

       Connection between drunkenness and crime

       Local veto proposals

       Less popular in England than in other English-speaking countries

       Sunday closing—Shorter hours in public-houses

       Too numerous drink-shops

       Liquor legislation in the United States

       In British North America

       In New Zealand

       In Australia

       In the Scandinavian countries—The Gothenburg system

       In Switzerland

       Experiment in South Carolina, 1892

       Desire to diminish by law the temptation to drink—The Parish Councils Act

       How far legislation should deal with spectacles or other amusements leading to vice

       With noises and disfigurements in the streets

       Distinction between things that are obtruded on the notice of all and things that are not

       Marriage Laws

       Early history of Christian marriage

       Council of Trent first made a religious ceremony necessary

       Survival of the old doctrine that simple consent constitutes marriage

       Claims of the Catholic Church to rule marriage

       Opinions of Catholic divines about Protestant marriages

       The State considers marriage a civil contract

       Legislation in France before the Revolution

       Marriage Law of Henry VIII.—English common law

       Divorce in England—Case of Lord Northampton

       Commission under Edward VI

       Divorce by special Acts of Parliament

       The Marriage Act of 1753

       English legislators treated as null marriages which were ecclesiastically valid

       Marriage Act of 1836

       Purely civil marriage established by the French law of 1792

       Its effect in simplifying marriages and removing disabilities

       Various Forms of Imperfect Marriages and Marriage Disabilities