of the Caucasian and one of the negro race is illegal and forbidden under penalty. Marriages are prohibited between persons related in certain degrees of kindred: A man with his mother, his father's sister or half-sister; his mother's sister or half-sister; his daughter, his father's daughter; his mother's daughter; his brother or sister's daughter; the daughter of his half-brother or half-sister; the daughter of his son or daughter; his father's widow; his son's widow; his deceased wife's daughter; or the daughter of his de ceased wife's son or daughter. Similarly for a woman with male relatives of equal degree.
The grounds for divorce may practically be classed under four heads: (1) Excesses in, or outrageous treatment from one of the parties, such that living together is insupportable; (2) adultery by one party; (3) Abandonment of one party for three years; (4) conviction of felony and confinement in State prison of one of the parties. The district court has jurisdiction in cases of divorce and petitions are granted only upon full and satisfactory evidence, and upon verdict of a jury, if a jury be demanded; if not, upon judgment of the court, affirming material facts alleged in the petition. Evidence of collusion between the parties being known, or where both parties are equally guilty, no divorce is granted. Divorced persons may legally re-marry. The custody of the children by the marriage is granted by the court to either party as may appear suitable. The court also makes such division of community estate as seems just.
The system of public education is non-sectarian in the meaning of the law. "The reading of the Bible without comment, the recitation of the Lord's Prayer and the singing of songs" of a generally religious character have been judged by the courts as legitimate exercises in the public schools. By a decision, however, of the State department of education the wearing of a distinctively religious garb or religious symbols by the teacher constitutes the school sectarian. No law, however, covers this contingency. No compulsory education law has been passed by the Legislature though some little agitation to that end has been made. The State Constitution and consequent legislation provide for lunatic asylums, an institute for the blind, for the deaf and dumb, for orphans and confederate veterans, and the widows of confederate veterans. For the care of orphans, the aged, and other infirm, private charity also exerts itself, in the lead of which is the Catholic Church.
Besides the regulation of the sale of liquor by licence, penalties more or less severe are attached by statute to selling intoxicating liquor to certain persons: wild Indians, minors, habitual drunkards; to the sale of intoxicants at certain times: Sundays, days of election; or in certain places: places of religious worship, places devoted to educational and literary purposes; to permitting in places, licensed for the sale of liquor, certain stated pastimes and persons: gaming, dancing, minors, etc. Local option may be voted in any county or legal subdivision thereof, and penalties are attached to selling or giving liquor in such prohibited districts. The sale of tobacco to minors is also regulated by law.
The Legislature makes an annual appropriation for a chaplain of the penitentiary, but any clergyman may, with the consent of the superintendent, visit the inmates at seasonable times, and even preach, though then the teaching must be non-sectarian. Any inmate also may have such religious ministrations as he desires. The same rules govern religious ministrations in the house of correction and the reformatory. Bequests for religious purposes are undoubtedly recognized. The provisions of the Constitution with respect to religion would most probably protect bequests for Masses for the repose of the testator's soul especially if the bequests were made to a named person. The law highly favours bequests made for charitable purposes of general philanthropic character. The incorporation of cemetery associations is authorized with but little different conditions from the general law. Severe penalties are attached to the desecration of graves.
Yoakums, History of Texas, ed. Wooten (Dallas, 1898); Winsor, Narrative and Critical History of America, II, IV, VIII; Stevens, American Bibliographer; Navarette, Colección, III; Bancroft, H. H., North Mexican States and Texas, I; Idem, Arizona and New Mexico; Weise, Discoveries of America, Cabeza de Vaca, Narrative (Valladolid, 1555), tr. Buckingham Smith (Washington, 1851); Shea, History of Catholic Missions (New York, 1855); Idem. Hist. Cath. Ch. in U.S. (New York, 1894); Records of the Diocese of Galveston (unpublished); Deuther, Life and Times of the Rt. Rer. John Timon, D. D. (Buffalo, N. Y., 1870); Records of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, Province of The Southwest (unpublished); Catholic Directory (1911); Bulletins, Thirteenth Census of the United States; Diocesan and other Notes from various authorities in Teras; Teras Almanac (Galveston - Dallas, 1912); Southern Messenger (San Antonio, late files).
John F. O' Shea.
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Thabor, Mount.—The name of Mount Thabor,
(
Hebrew characters) , is
rendered in the Septuagint as
(Greek characters), and in Jeremias and
Osee as (Greek characters). It is under
this last form (Itabyrion or Atabyrion) that the mount figures
in the historical works of the
ancients. The Arabs call it
Jebel et Tur (mountain of mountains), a name which they give likewise to Mounts
Garizim, Sinai, and Olivet. Mount Thabor is distinguished among the mountains of Palestine for its picturesque site, its graceful outline, the remarkable
vegetation which covers its sides of calcareous rock,
and the splendour of the view from its sumimit.
Nearly isolated on all sides and almost hemisphercal
in shape it rises in a peak 1650 feet above the Plain of
Esdraclon, which it bounds on the north and east,
about five miles south-east of Nazareth. It attains a
height of 1843 feet above the level of the Mediterranean and of 2540 feet above that of the Lake of
Tiberias. Josephus (Bell. Jud., IV, i, 8) gives it a
height of thirty stadia, or 18,201 feet, but he doubtless made use of the figure A (four stadia or 2427
feet), which the copyist must have replaced by A
(thirty). The summit forms an oblong plateau about
3000 feet long, from north-west to south-cast, by
1000 wide. The eye is immediately attracted to the
north-east by the gigantic masses of Great Hermon,
then to the Valley of the Jordan, the Lake of Tiberias
and the mountain chains of Hauran, Basan, and Galaad. To the south are Naim and Endor at the foot
of Jebel Dahy or Mount Morch (Judges, vii, 1),
wrongly identified by Eusebins and St. Jerome with
Little Hermon (Ps. xli, 7); somewhat farther off is
seen Mount Gelboc. Westward the rich plain of Esdrelon stretches as far as Mount Carmel and innumerable Biblical and historical localities stir thoughts of
the past.
