Association, over which you preside, and on the 1st February, 1860, I was requested to move the first resolution at a public meeting convened by that Society at Willis's Rooms. The meeting was a remarkable one in many ways. Not only was the room crowded, but, although it was held during the business hours of the day, it was attended by a majority of men as compared with women, and by a majority of laymen as compared with clergymen. I was then asked to print a correct copy of the speech, and did my best, with the assistance of the short-hand writer's notes, to reproduce my arguments. But I have continued to observe such remarkable ignorance of the former and existing state of our law upon the subject, such persevering misrepresentation (I will not call it wilful) of the effect of Lord Lyndhurst's Act of 1835, such blindness to the inevitable, and not remote, consequences of breaking down the barriers, that from the first existence of our nation have separated incestuous from lawful marriages, that I am not content to let another Session of Parliament pass without doing my best to make the law known, so that its misrepresentation shall no longer be excusable, and without pointing out the necessary consequences of its alteration. The Lord Chancellor, some very eminent retired Judges, and other distinguished members of my own profession, are to be found enrolled as members of our Association, and though they will not be responsible
