cept one penny, and that be not had, we say that the man may separate from her on that account, and she cannot reclaim any of her property; and that is the single penny that takes away a hundred." .The nineteenth clause provides that if a married woman commit a heinous crime, either by giving a kiss to another man, or other act, she must give saraad or com pensation to the offended husband. If a woman found her husband with another woman she could claim " gowyn," or pay ment for his infidelity. Should a man take a woman to his house for three nights, the law recognized the cohabitation as a kind of marriage, and he could not part from her without giving her three oxen. If the con nection continued for seven years, she was as his betrothed wife in respect of property. Having thus given precedence and much space to the fair sex, Book the Second goes on to deal with the general laws of the country. Turning over the pages wc come to the following : — "If he (a thief at the gallows) should assert that another person was an accessory with him in the robbery for which he is about to surfer, and he should persist in his assertion unto the state God went to, and he is going to, his word is there de cisive and cannot be gainsayed; nevertheless, his fellow-thief shall not be executed, but is a saleable thief; for no person is to be executed upon the word of another, if nothing be found on his person." That the lawyers of mediaeval Wales were prone to disagree is shown in clause twenty-seven, which runs thus: — "If there be a surety for a debt, and before the time of payment the surety die and leave a son, the son ought to be responsible for the father's debts. Some say that if that son willeth to deny his suretyship over the grave of his father, the legal denial is to be given. We say it ought not to be; for the learned say that the law of this world can affect a person, whether he be gone to heaven or hell, only until he goes to this earth. The cause is that, although there be law between man and man, upon this earth, there is no law between devil and devil, and there is no law be tween angel and angel, only the will of God."
Considerable space is next given to the statutes concerning landed property, and the methods of procedure in lawsuits there anent. Such lawsuits seem to have been conducted in the open field. The King presided in such cases, having two judges, four priests, two elders, and four good men to help him with their counsel. It was expressly stipulated that the King should be seated " with his back to the sun or to the weather, lest the weather incommode his face." The plaintiff and defendant were each to have a " guider " and " pleader " at his side, and an " apparitor " behind him. When the Court was seated silence was ordered on the field, and anyone who broke this silence had to pay a fine of three cows or nine score of silver. These went to the King. After the pleadings, the two judges and the four priests retired to consider the case. Prayer was offered that God might show them the right. After due delibera tion, the Court reassembled in the field, and the verdict was proclaimed. Book third of the Howellian Code was termed the Proof-Book. This title seems to have been derived from the fact of a judge's knowledge being "proved" by his being thoroughly acquainted with its con tents. Here we find many quaint and pecu liar decrees. For instance in the laws per taining to arson we read : " If swine enter a house and scatter fire about so as to burn the house, and the swine escape, let the owner of the swine pay for their act. If the swine be burned, it is an equation between them, as being two irrational things; and therefore, where there is an equation by law, there is nothing to be re dressed, but one is set against the other." The thief of old Wales had a pretty hard time of it. A law concerning him reads: "For theft to the value of fourpence the the thief is saleable, and for a greater amount forfeits his life," a penalty which for a fourpenny-ha'penny steal was certainly outrageously heavy. Indeed under the laws
