Mr. E. B. Tylor, after stating that marriage by Capture may be seen at the present day among the fierce forest tribes of Brazil, continues: “Ancient tradition knows this practice well, as where the men of Benjamin carry off the daughters of Shiloh dancing at the feast, and in the famous Roman tale of the rape of the Sabines, a legend putting in historical form the wife-capture which in Roman custom remained as a ceremony. What most clearly shows what a recognised old-world custom it was, is its being thus kept up as a formality where milder manners really prevailed. It had passed into this state among the Spartans, when Plutarch says that though the marriage was really by friendly settlement between the families, the bridegroom’s friends went through the pretence of carrying off the bride by violence. Within a few generations the same old habit was kept up in Wales, where the bridegroom and his friends, mounted and armed as for war, carried off the bride; and in Ireland they used even to hurl spears at the bride’s people, though at such a distance that no one was hurt, except now and then by accident, as happened when one Lord Howth lost an eye, which mischance seems to have put an end to this curious relic of antiquity.” Moreover, we are told that “in our own marriages the ‘best man’ seems originally to have been the chief abettor of the bridegroom in the act of capture.” In a modified form “wife-capture” cannot be said to be extinct even in this advanced age. Elopement is the modern name for it When the parents dissent and the couple are very young, this climax of courtship doubtless is often reprehensible. But in those cases where the consent of all parties has been obtained, it ought to be universally adopted. Sudden flight and an impromptu marriage would add much to the romance of the honeymoon, and would enable the bridal couple to avoid the terrors and stupid formalities of the wedding-day, the anticipation of which is doubtless responsible for the ever-increasing number of cowardly bachelors in the world. (2) _Purchase_ represents a somewhat higher stage of Courtship than Capture. Like Capture this custom has existed among the peoples of the five continents, and is still retained in some parts of Africa and elsewhere. In Holstein, Germany, it prevailed in all its purity, according to Ploss, till the end of the fifteenth century. Nor would it be doing facts great violence to class our frequent money-marriages under this head.