Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 7.djvu/318

300 or who are of intemperate habits. He also says that the rate of descent and ascent must depend very much on the constitution and experience of the diver, about 2 feet a second for a strong man for depths not exceeding 80 feet, and for descending to greater depths additional care must be used. The greatest pressures to which men are subjected in engineering works are experienced in the compressed air cylinders used in bridge building (see article ). At Saltash bridge it was found that tho men could not work long shifts at the depth of 8G feet without serious inconvenience some of them, after working seven hours, being slightly paralyzed, but in two or three days they quite recovered. With three hours shifts the men could work for several months consecutively. At Londonderry bridge, where the men wrought under a pressure of 75 feet, or about two atmospheres, Sir John Hawkshaw found that there was considerable difference in the relative ability of men to stand the pressure. He had found Irishmen less able to stand the work than Englishmen, one of the effects being that the joints began to swell. In other cases no evil resulted. Captain Eads, the engineer of the bridge, built across the in, gives some interesting in formation, in his reports to the directors of the  and  Bridge Company, on the effect of working under high pressure on the men. The maximum depth to which the cylinders had to be sunk was 1101⁄undefined feet below summer water level, and the greatest pressure tinder which the men worked was 50 or 51 lb on the square inch. When the depth of 60 feet had been reached some of the men were affected by paralysis of the lower limbs, which usually passed off in a day or two. At greater depths the symptoms were more severe. The duration of working in the air chamber was gradually shortened from four hours to one hour. The total number of men employed in working under pressure was 352, of whom 30 were seriously affected and 12 cases proved fatal.  DIVISION. See.  DIVORCE is the dissolution of the relationship of marriage. Few social questions are surrounded with greater difficulty than this. For what causes divorce should be granted, and whether complete divorce should be granted at all in the sense of authorizing the spouses to contract new marriages, are points on which civilized societies have arrived at very different conclusions. Modern practice and opinion are to be traced mainly to two sources of principle, viz., Roman law and the Christian religion. The effect of the spread of Christianity was to reinvest marriage with the religious character from which in the later law of Rome it had completely escaped ; and the history of divorce in modern times has been the gradual decay of the restrictions which were thought appropriate to the religious character of the institution of marriage. At the same time these restrictions have nowhere disappeared. The opinion of society visibly fluctuates between the belief that marriage is a civil contract only and the belief that it is a contract of a peculiarly sacred character, the dissolution of which must not be lightly, if at all, permitted by human legislation. Again, divorce appears to be regarded some times as a penalty against the offending spouse, sometimes ai a right to which the innocent spouse is entitled. It will be granted only if a matrimonial offence is proved to have been committed, but it will not be granted if such an offence has been committed on both sides. Hence a certain amount of inconsistency in legislation about divorce, which is in no system more remarkable than in our own, founded as it is on the doctrines of the canon law, modified by the opinions of secular judges, and altered by Acts of Parliament. In Roman law marriage was regarded as a voluntary union which might be terminated at any time by the consent of tho parties. No legal process was required, although the abuse of the power of divorce was sometimes punished. If a wife had not passed under the manus of her husband, her father might withdraw her from the union against the wishes of both parties. A constitution of Antoninus Pius limited this power. Until the time of Justinian divorce by consent of both parties does not appear to have been subject to any restriction. Justinian, however, allowed it only in three specified cases, viz., for impotency, or when either party desired to enter on a monastic life or was for a long time in captivity. &quot; At a later period Justinian enacted that persons dissolving a marriage by mutual consent should forfeit all their property and be con fined for life to a monastery, which was to receive a third of the forfeited property, the remaining two-thirds going to the children of the marriage. This severity, so much at variance with the Roman spirit, indicates the growing power of the clergy (id non Dei judicium contemnatur).&quot; (Hunter s Roman Law, p. 500.) These prohibitions were repealed in the next reign. Divorce by the husband against the wish of his wife was a power much more likely to be abused than that of dissolving marriage by mutual consent. Although the legal right was recognized, it is said not to have been acted on for a period of 500 s, and Spurius Carvilius is said to have been the first who put away his wife for barrenness. Harshness in the exercise of the power was condemned by public opinion, and sometimes punished by the authority of censors. L. Antonius, a senator, was expelled from the senate for a harsh divorce of a young wife. The wife who had not come under the manus of the husband had the same power of repudiating the marriage at will. Later legislation curbed this excessive licence. By the lex Julia et Papia Poppaea, a husband divorcing a wife for adultery might re tain one-sixth of her dowry ; for any smaller offence, only one-eighth. When a husband was guilty of adultery he had to repay the dowry at once ; if the fault were less serious, in six months. Constantine allowed the wife to divorce the husband in the following cases : 1, for murder ; 2, for being a preparer of poison ; 3, for violating tombs. Just causes for repudiation by the husband were 1, adultery ; 2, preparing poisons ; 3, being a procuress. A wife divorcing her husband for other than the specified grounds forfeited the dowry, and might be punished by deportation. Similarly a husband lost his interest in tho dowry of his wife by an injurious divorce. Similar pro visions are to be found in the legislation of Honorius and Theodorus, of Theodosius and Valentinian Justinian settled the grounds of divorce as follows : The wife could divorce her husband 1, for conspiracy against the empire ; 2, attempting her life ; 3, attempting to induce her to commit adultery ; 4, wrongfully accusing her of adultery ; 5, taking a paramour to his house or fre quenting any other house in the same town with a paramour. On a divorce for these reasons a wife recovered her dowry, and obtained the husband s portion as well. If she divorced for other reasons she forfeited her dowry, and could not marry for five years, as in the legislation of Theodosius and Valentinian. So a husband might justly divorce his wife for 1, concealment of plots against the empire ; 2, adultery ; 3, attempting her husband s life, or concealing plots against him ; 4, going to baths or banquets with other men ; 5, remaining from home against her husband s wish ; 6, going to circus, theatre, or amphitheatre against his wish. In such cases the husband retains the dowry for life, or if he has no children absolutely. In other cases penalties as fixed by previous legislation of Theodosius and Valentinian apply. The grounds for divorce specified in these various enactments are an interesting commentary on contemporary manners.