De Candolle, Anne

CASIMIR PYRAME, a Swi botanist, born at Geneva, Feb. 20, 1836. He was educated at the University of Geneva, receiving the degree of Ph.D. He has given special attention to the formation and study of leaves, and among his treatises on this subject an important one is Considerations sur l'étude de la phyllotaxie. Much of his time was spent aiding his father Alphonse de C. in editing the Prodromus. The last four volumes contain numerous monographs written by him on families of plants. Deca'ni. [L.] ( Eccles .) Of or pertaining to a dean; as, the decani side of a choir (i. e., the side to the right of one facing the altar, opposed to cantoris ); this being the side occupied by the dean in a cathedral. Decazes ( deh - käz ), ÉLIE, DUC DE, French statesman, born at St. Martin-du-Laye, Sept. 28, 1780. Counselor of King Louis of Holland, and later secretary to Letitia Bonaparte. In 1814, he connected himself with the Bourbon cause, and held several official positions previous to that of Prime Minister, in 1819. This office he resigned when he was charged with being an accomplice in the murder of the Duke of Berry. He was subsequently created a duke, and in 1820, sent as amba ador to England. He supported Louis Philippe after the revolution of 1830, and in 1818 was made duke of Glücksburg by the king of Denmark and sent to that country on a special mi ion. Died Oct. 24, 1860. Decazes, LOUIS CHARLES ÉLIE ARMANIEN, DUC DE, statesman, born in Paris, May 29, 1819, eldest son of Elie D. In 1848, was Minister to Spain and Portugal, but retired fron this office at the outbreak of the Revolution. He was a member of the National A embly, and Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1873-77. Died Sept. 17, 1886. Deceased Wife's Sister. ( Law .) At one period in Europe marriage with the sister of a deceased wife was prohibited as incestuous, both branches of the Christian Church, Eastern and Western, condemning it. The early canon law forbade marriage between relatives to the seventh degree (afterward changed to the fourth degree), a decree founded on the Mosaic law respecting the intermarriage of kindred. But this canon law was by no means strictly enforced, papal dispensations being common. By the 19th century restriction in this direction had largely vanished, the only remnant of it being in Great Britain, where the law prohibiting marriage with a brother's widow or a deceased wife's sister is still retained. On the continent of Europe, in the United States, and in most or all of the British colonies, it has been abrogated, and full freedom of action in this direction exists. In Britain this system was confirmed by a law pa ed in 1835, by which all such marriages were declared null and of no effect. In Scotland, by the law of 1567, all connections prohibited in the 18th chapter of Levitic us are declared incestuous and punishable by death; and in the 18th century Barbara Tanna hill was executed for contracting a marriage with the husband of her deceased sister. For many years past agitation for the abrogation of this law has been kept up in Parliament. A bill to repeal the law was offered in Parliament in 1841, but its introduction was refused. Since that date the subject has been brought before nearly every Parliament, but, though several times reaching a second reading, it has invariably been rejected. More recently the supporters of the measure have endeavored to carry it through the House of Lords, but with the same negative result. The main hindrance to legislation seems to have been the opposition of the churches. Despite the law, such marriages are frequent among the poorer cla es, and their expediency is upheld by many arguments, but church conservatism still controls the situation.