ECCLESIASTICAL ORGANIZATION.

IN the district of Columbia, as in all other parts of the United States, religion is considered as an affair of conscience: the government does not interfere in spiritual concerns, so that the word tolerance, which implies power, or monopoly, is wholly unknown. There are different sects, and a great variety of religious opinions, but no dissention. Peace is considered as the great characteristic of true religion, and active and passive freedom of conscience its natural and best fruit.

The annual salary of a clergyman at Washington, is about a thousand dollars, with a small mansion and lot of land-a provision which is said to be inadequate to the support of a family; and it is probably owing to this circumstance, that two clergymen, the one a Presbyterian, the other a Baptist, have Clerkships in the Treasury department.

The Laws of Virginia and Maryland admit of no external badge or distinction of their order in the ordinary intercourse of life, but only in the exercise of their sacred functions in their respective places of divine worship. Else

where, and at other times, it is as impossible to distinguish them from the crowd, as to recognise their places of worship, which are without steeple, cross, bell, or other distinctive sign of religious appropriation.

At the general convention of the delegates and representatives of Virginia holden at Williamsburg, in May 1766, it was solemnly declared: "that religion, or the duty which we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force and violence; and therefore all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of their religion, according to the dictates of conscience; and that it is the mutual duty of all to practise Christian forbearance, love, and charity towards each other."

In the legislative act of 1785, it was declared to be a natural right, "that no man should be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship-that all men are free to profess, and by argument to maintain their religious opinions."

By an act of Dec. 1792, for the suppression of vice, and punishing the disturbers of religious worship, the offenders are adjudged by a civil trial by jury, who have power to

fine and imprison and bind over to good behaviour. For profane swearing and drunkenness, the penalty is 83 cents; and for labouring on Sunday, one dollar and 75 cents, applied to all persons, and especially to apprentices, servants, and slaves.

For adultery (of which there is scarcely an example) the punishment is twenty dollars. For fornication (which is too common)one half of this sum. Both morals and finance might be benefited by reversing the fine. In the state of Maryland, before the revolution, the penalty for adultery was twelve hundred pounds of tobacco, on the payment of which the offender was supposed to be sufficiently smoked. If unable to pay, the scourge was applied, and he was lacerated till the blood appeared, though the number of stripes was limited to thirty-nine.

OF THE MEDICAL PROFESSION.

In Washington there are nine physicians, and two apothecaries who are also physicians; their fee in the city is a dollar a visit: in the country it is regulated by the distance. Young men, destined for this profession, usually

study one or two years with a physician, and afterwards hear medical lectures one or two years more at the colleges of Philadelphia or Baltimore. For admission to the exercise of this profession there are no regulations; and any person, however unskilful, may exercise it, though in opposition to an act of the assembly of Maryland, of 1798, which not being rescinded, applies to the district of Washington. By virtue of this act a medical faculty was established in that state, with powers to select twelve persons of the best medical abilities, who, after a strict examination of medical students, or inspection of their college diploma, are authorised to grant them licenses to practise as physician or surgeon: the penalty for the infraction of this act is fifty dollars, to be recovered by a bill of preferment and indictment; one half of which sum is to be given to the faculty, and the other to the informer. It is to be regretted, that this, or some similar regulation, is not enforced at Washington; for the mass of the people of this, as of every other country, are entirely ignorant of those acquirements and experience which a physician ought to possess. The profession is degraded to the great mortification of men of science; and what is

infinitely of more importance, many individuals become the sport or victims of ignorance. The laws ought to find a remedy for this evil by enacting, that no person shall establish himself as a physician, without a regular academical, followed by a medical and surgical, education, or at least palpable evidence of eminent knowledge and experience otherwise acquired. In 1797, it was enacted by the legislature of New-York, that no person should practise medicine, unless he produced good evidence that he had already exercised this profession during two years; or had pursued medical studies, for the same time, with a respectable physician or surgeon; and the infraction of this act was punished by a fine of twenty-five dollars. It was afterwards enacted, that no person should be allowed to practise physic or surgery, unless he had studied four years with a regular physician, or was furnished with a diploma of Bachelor or Doctor of Medecine by some College or University that if he had graduated in any College, he might, after three years of medical studies, be authorised to exercise his profession. These acts, which do honor to the legislature, did not produce the desired effect. Young men, without a regular classical edu