The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1862-07-15 00:00:00

Legal,

Ten YELVIRTON Romance—After an inquiry which
has extended over four years, it has been decided in the
Scotch Courts that Mrs. Yelverton is not • married
woman ; and eeetensporaneonsly with the publication of
this decision ati Irish Court, after an investigation of
two years, hlis confirmed a previous verdict that Mrs.
Yelverton is a married woman. At Dublin she is,
according to the law as laid down by judges and
an Irish jury, the wife of Major Yelverton; at Ellin-
burgh she is the ex-mistress of the man she claims as
husband. The two decisions strikingly contrasted as
they are by theirsimultoneous publication form in them-
metres • singular satire on the marriage law of the
Hated Kingdom. Elo infinite and anomalous are these
laws that Her MajenVe judges decide against each
other, one side of the Irish Sea, maintaining that Mrs.
Yelverton is doubly married—that is, both by the
laws of Scotland and the laws of Ireland--and the
other side declaring that she is net married at all. At the
present moment, therefore, the lady whose Clltle has
occupied so much attention during the last for ',ears
abode in the unique position of being both married and
not married. Ireland chivalrously maintains that she
is the honest ar,d ill-used wife of • blackguard patrician;
heartland pronounces her to be • erafty woman who
follpwed and finally ruined a young man of "gentle
blood," who, if he was not quite S 6 good as he should,
be, was nevertheless the victim of a clever, eunuingt
passionate, but indiscreetand imprudent female of *bon
his own age, who made love to bin, whenever she had
the chance, smutted him everywhere, bewitched him
with her personal beauty and her brilliant intelleet, and
led him into • mock ceremony of marriage to
'gratify her inordinate and uncontrollable passions under
tie ',midway °fa fonn which she well knew to be nothing
inotit, than • sham. It is passing strange that with
preeissily the lame evidence before them the two Courts
should base some to opposite conclusions, Mrs. Yel-
veHou complains in a letter which was published, el
urffairness with which her ease has been beard in
the Sootth Courts, and whether the poblis agree or
not with what she says, all will admit, we believe, that
the note appended to his decision by Lord Ardmillen,
in which he gives the reasons for the judgment he has
prolonnoed, is *deliberate attempt to make the facto
dlseoued in the evidence look as favourable to Major
Yelirerton as possible. That the document is • very
able one, remarkably *fear, and very elaborate, there is
no doubt, bat froni beginning to end it is the Major
who is the victim and the lady who is to blame. The
Lord Ordinary recalls the circumstance under which
Major and Mrs. Yelverton "found each other in the
dark" on board the Boulogne steamer, the incident of
the plaid end other facts that gave so lunch romantic
interest to the Irish trial, and in doing so he continu-
ally urges that Mrs. Yelverton wasthen the" pursuer,"
and that tbe innocent Major was always like a man
who did wrong only because it was forced upon
Agoordieg to Lord Ardmillan, the man who
before the altar at llilbroney vowed solemnly
to mak* Thema Longworth his wife, never in-
tended to marry the woman he was deceiving,
never did marry her, and never deceived
her se to the teal mowing of what took pleas either at

Edinburgh or in Ireland. iltra, Yelverton knew that
the Irish marriage was not a Iliwful ruarrtagt, and that
what took plat* in Scotland was no Nan's° at aIL
One would suppose from the judgment that this
innommt Major was some child that Mn. Yelverton was
leading about from place to place, teaching him all aorta
of naughty tricks. In referring to the Irish marriage,
Lord Ardinillan says, that after leading a disreputalle
life for about a fortnight, Mrs. Yelverton "took" the
Major to Itostrever to liae the ceremony performed.
But, if Mrs. Yelverton was clever, it cannot he mid
that Major Yelverton had had no experience of the
world at the time he was " taken" on this reinarkable
errand. Why, before the couple met on board the
steamer in 1852, lie bad been nine year* an artillery
officer, and must have had some knowledge of life. To
represent him, therefore, as an erring but well-meaning
young man is to pervert the evidence for the purpose
of white-cashing as black • sheep As ever disgraced the
order to which he belongs. Independently of the
Irish ceremony Mrs. Yelverton rested her claims on
three points, all based on the Scotch law ;—lat, hlarriage
by the interchange or cement de prresenti; 2nd,
Marriage by promise subrequenie copula ; 2rd, Marriage
by cohabitation, as husband and wife, and habit and
repute. Upon the first point the Lord Ordinary thinks
there was no interchange of mutual consent to marry
milkiest in law to constitute marriage; on the second
hissers Major Yelverton never within Scotland, in words
or writing, made a promise to marry : and on the third
point he considers that the cohabitation was merely n
consorting, with the view to commbinage, under
the colour of professed marriage—an act which the
Scotch law does not recognise as constituting a valid
marriage. These being the conclusions of the Lord Ordi-
nary, Mrs. Yelverton has no alternative but to take the
ease to a higher court, and as she has given 'notice of
her intention to do this, we shall have the whole-of the
strange courtship investigated de nova What will
strike the general reader in perusing the judgment just
delivered will be the colouring given to the evidence to
make it out that poor, simple-minded Major Yelverton
—the prosepopcsia of innocence -has been the victim
of a crafty woman. The next prominent feature in it
Is the light it throws upon the marriage laws of the
United Kingdom. The looseness of the Scotch law and
the barbarity of the Irish law an clearly brought out.
Any Protestant who dares to follow the example act
by Major Yelverton and declare at the altar that he lea
Roman Catholic may, under the semblance of marriage,
deceive and ruin as many girls aeho pleases, and the law
haa no power to stop him. As regards the Scotch law,
it is surprising that something has not been done
to render, it more definite and intelligible. At pre-
sent, consent, if freely, seriously, and deliberately
given, constitutes maniage. No ceremony whatever,
civil or religions, is necessary. Two persons
may be legally marriei without any third party
knowing of it. This free and easy liberty is, of mouse,
liable to be abused, and the law consequently recog-
nises various modes in which mutual consent to marry
may be proved. If there has been no celebration of
tho ordinance of marriage in facie ecdeeite, legal Proof
of promise to marry, followed by cohabitation, is held
to show mutual consent. Disputes arise in eonstruing
the meaning of a promise, and Lord Aelmillsn
says the character of the courtship may be ,
of great tome in deciding such disputes.
Then again, marriage may be constitnted by
cohabitation as husband and wife, and habit and
repute. If two persons live together therefore qe man
and wife, and are so "by habit" and "repute," this is
considered proof aufficient of the mutual consent which
makes nustriinony. A divided repute or • limited re-
pute is not sufficient, so that it depends on what her
friends choose to think whether a woman in some cases
can prove that she is married. All this is no loose that
it is surprising to find such • law still in force. By
making it imperative that nothing leas than a civil or
religions ceremony should constitute marriage, all diffi-
culty of proving mutual consent would be got rid of.
As the law stands it gives facilities to persons of the
Yelverton stamp which they ought not to Possess, and
we trust that the rase which has just brought out pro-
minently its peculiarities •nd its defects may be the
means of leading to an amendment which will render it
no longer difficult to define what constitutes a Scotch
marriage.