were obliged to submit to blows and lashes with a rod, at the _merciful_
pleasure of a _merciful_ people. And "Oh, most unkindly act of all,"
they had also to sing certain songs composed to their own dishonour,
contempt, and derision.

By many, the Christian dispensation is supposed to be, in a great
degree, favourable to a state of bachelorism, because the Apostle, Paul,
has recommended it as preferable; but we think the recommendation was
given for the following reason: (i.e.) every one in the early ages of
Christianity was exposed to liability of testing his religious
principles, by the loss of both his property and life; and consequently,
the loss must have been felt in a greater degree, if the sufferer was
married. Thus persecution must have been more dreadful to the married
than to the unmarried. The ancient church, misconstruing the Apostle's
words, and also overlooking his meaning, recommended the state of
bachelorism in the male, and perpetual virginity in the female sex, not
only as a state more perfect than marriage, but even as highly
meritorious. Thus, by degrees, came into being the absurd and fast
decaying system of monastic establishments, which, for many centuries
burdened Europe with drones innumerable.

In England, bachelors are not left to go forgotten to their solitary
graves. There was a tax laid on them by the 7th William III., after the
twenty-fifth year of their age, which was £12. 10_s_. for a duke, and
1_s_. for a commoner. At present they are taxed by an extra duty upon
their servants: for a male, £1. 5_s_.; for a female, 2_s_. 6_d_., above
the usual duties leviable upon servants. E.J.H.

*** So, Touchstone's philosophy hath legal warrant: "Is the single man
blessed? No: as a walled town is more worthier than a village, so is the