APPENDIX TO LETTER II.
Extracts from a Letter of a Clergyman of South Carolina to a Clergyman in England.
"Marriage with a deceased wife's sister has, I am sorry to say, been growing to be customary among us. At the beginning of our colonial history it was forbidden, of course, under the English law then in force among us, as in other parts of the British dominions; and in an Act passed by the Legislature, in a.d. 1707, it was enjoined that the 'Table of Prohibited Degrees' should be affixed openly to every church-building as a guide to the people. This Act has never been repealed, and it is pronounced by high legal authority to be still binding. But it has been going into desuetude of late years, only however since our Independence. The first instance of its infringement was somewhere about the year 1797, when a gentleman of prominent social position in Charleston, and of eminent services in the Revolutionary War, wishing to marry his wife's sister, applied to Bishop Smith, the first of our Bishops, to officiate. Bishop Smith, an Englishman by birth and education, said he was not satisfied that it would be right to comply with the gentleman's wishes, but promised to consult some of his brethren elsewhere. He did consult Bishop White, our first Bishop of English
