The Express.
London, England, 1868-08-26 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, WEDNESDAY EVENING, AUGUST 26, 1868.
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those who wore registered. A certain period of
notic' is to be required to be givelfo the distriet
registrars, and in the case of minors the consent of
parents or guardians is demanded. ;But failure is
these particulars, provided that the nogieetbr error
is not discovered in time to stop the marriage, is
not to invalidate it after it is performed.
If, however, to anyone those changes seem too
sweeping it will only be because he has not paid
regard to the magnitude of the evils by which the
present more stringent system is attended. It is
obviouslyimpossible to confine the place of celebra-
tion to a church when every year it is found neces-
eery to pass an Act of Parliament to declare mar-
riages valid which have been during a series of
years solemnised in edifioes commonly supposed to
be churches, but in which some unknown error in
the registration or consecration is, after a long in-
terval, discovered. It is equally impossible to
maintain the system of banns when common ob-
servation teaches that they are utterly useless as a
means of ensuring publicity to those who are con-
cerned. For example, it is only a few weeks
since there came to light the case of a
footman who ran away with his master's
daughter, and was married to her in his native
parish church after publication of banns, the
marriage being only dissoluble- afterwards by the
lucky accident that he had blundered the spelling
of his intended wife's name. Equally impossible is it
to allow the system of license to survive, in virtue
of which every element of publicity may be evaded
by any one who chooses to pay il., and in the
case of marrying a minor, to swear a false oath.
Again. whoever has considered the exceedingly
painful cases in which an error in the names, per-
haps unwittingly made, perhaps assented to by
one party at the suggestion of the other for some
nefarious purpose, has been made the means of
overturning a marriage supposed to be good, will
assent to the proposition that we must regard the
persons and their intention, and must disregard
the names they choose accidentally or temporarily
to assume. And, lastly, considering that we have
gradually been obliged by piecemeal enactments
to permit dissenting clergymen and registrar!, to
perform the essential part of marriage, we cannot
help now admitting that it is in substance a mere
civil contract, in which the State must confine
itself to prescribing rules of evidence, and cannot
enact any ecclesiastical direction.
In searching for the forms which shall best meet
the exigencies of modern society, the Commis-
aioners adopt as their own the enunciation of the
requirements of a good marriage law which were
given in the evidence of Mr. BOYD Emma, one
of the Scottish witnesses examined, and who seems
to have been one of the only two witnesses who
were at once Scottish advocates and English bar-
risters. This gentleman stated the problem as
being the disoovery of means by which the maxi-
mum of simplicity could be combined with the
maximum of certainty, and he proposed as a test
what the Commissioners also adopt—that " the
" provisions of a marriage code ought to be such
" as every woman not only can understand by
" study, but is correctly acquainted with through
" the common understanding of society, while the
" security should be such that all persons, if
" honestly intending to marry, ehould be able to
" place their contact, by adoption of the ordinary
" means, beyond the reach of doubts." It will,
we think, be generally acknowledged that
the new code proposed by the Commissioners
would, to a very large extent, fulfil these de-
siderata. Every man and woman would know
that an ordinary marriage must be celebrated in
presence either of a registrar or a clergyman,
and these officials would give all needful in-
formation. To make it indisputably valid, it
would be well known that it must be registered,
and once on the proper register it would not
signify whether there had been any previous
blundering in notices, in names, or in official
authority of the celebrants. This would be an
immense gain. But then it is to be kept in view
that this certainty and this simplicity so far apply
only in the cases in which both parties wish to do
everything in regular and valid order ; and the
serious difficulties of a marriage law arise only
when we contemplate the cases in which the
parties are not able, or do not choose, or one of
them does not wish, to proceed in order. Such a
class of difficulties the Commissioners themselves
recognise when ttey deal with the matter of notices.
Ordinarily they propose to require a fortnight's
notice and residence in the district. But they
admit that there are cases in which the parties
cannot comply with such a requirement, and they
therefore propose that the Bishop or district re-
gistrar may dispense with it and marry them

without notice " on reasonable cause." This is a
vague enough latitude, yet nothing less could be
conceded to domestic exigencies, in the face of
such recent facts as the marriage of a gentle-
man in Berkshire on his deathbed, celebrated in
virtue of a special license, granted by the Arch-
bishop of Caraznatinv ; the marriage the other
day in Scotland of Earl BROWNLOW'S daughter by
her father's bedside, when he was suddenly struck
by mortal illness; or the act of the Cape legisla-
ture, legalising in that colony the marriage of
some dozens of our Crimean German Legion, who
were ordered thither on too short notice to allow
of banns being put up in England for their mar-
riage with girls to whom they bad become en-
gaged. Here then are inevitable irregularities, not
blameworthy but laudable, which must break in
' upon the Commissioners' simplicity of scheme.
But its certainty may also be impugned. Sup-
posing a man loads a girl to elope, and carries her
before a fictitious registrar and a false registry
book P Nothing could be easier for him to do,
nothing more difficult for the girl to disoover
fraud in, however well aware she might be that •
registration was the one essential. The Commis-
sioners say that a false registrar shall not
invali-
date, but that a false register must. The Scottish,
people say that in such a case the honest intention
of at least one of the parties, and the express de-
clarations of the others, arc the real things to be
considered, and not the book in which the inten-
tion is expressed. We cannot but fear that in
such points as these the scheme of the Commis-
sioners will fail to satisfy them that, in spite of
the immense improvements proposed in the En-
glish system. the new code would embody in a
fair sense either the maximum of simplicity or of
certainty.
It seems to us that, on this point, the 4recom-
mendations of the Commissioners, in so far as they
hope to achieve a uniformity of law, will make
shipwreck. It is obvious, from the Scottish evi-
dence, that that nation attaches great weight to
the moral advantage of their system in turning
many irregular connections into legal and valid
marriage; and in removing, so far as possible,
any inducement to sham marriage when it cannot
be openly proclaimed or delayed. We certainly
agree with the Commissioners that it will not be
possible to persuade the English mind to take
exactly this view. But if the difference on this
point is irreconcilable, we do not see that the
Commissioners' recommendations will, therefore,
be fruitless. The law may be made uniform as
regards all regular marriages, though Scotland is

still left in poseession of her own populist and
loved, though to Englishmen incomprehensible.
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ressonshie penaltois vitm o rswrefs 1-
commend,

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CONTEMPORARIES.
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T ire MT Milk ...
The; Veep . muses that it ia sin le
arldeqvilcdge Jigging been hoaxed, but is. ertheims.,
bound to adneit the fact. It is equalfiglexpleamso to
relinquish the belief is a pleasing dream, sad there 'sir
something so simple, so direct, and moreover, so exalted
about Mr. Stuart Wortley's Lowestoft letter that it is
with the utmost reluctance our centemperary recognises
It as a hoax. But there is no escape from the
amolusion, and the Times proceeds in a bantering
way to remark upon the absurdity of supposing that, after
a prolonged retirement, Mr. Stuart Wortley should have
suddenly been visited with twinges of compunction gaper-
induced by a mere lay sermon. Who could have dreamt
that the late governor would befriend throwing overboard
Mr. Albert Grant, the masaging director, sad acknow-
ledging that imaginary profits had been made the occasion
of conferring real commission on the board of direc-
tors I' Who—wildest Sight of the imagination of all

—could believe that a-sum of 16,0001., or rather
of something over that amount, was about to be returned
M soon as the necessary pecuniary arrangements could be
made for that purpose )* The Times makes confession of
its errors in the eyes of the world. It is prepared to do
penance as publicly as it has offended, and submit to dust
and ashes in token of abasement. It was an incredible
folly.
The announcement did not, the Deily News believes,
greatly affect the market value of Credit Fowler shares.
The whole aspect of the letter was irregular. Mr. Stuart
Wortley has done nothing so unhandsome as " poaching"
upon his colleagues. The shareholders are but where
they were—no bettor and no worse than before the pub-
lication of this letter, and the same may be said of Mr.
Albert Grant.

To sceptical obt,...,rvers, says the Telegraph, there was
about the whole arrangement a nebulous uncertainty that
was not at all removed after the outspoken remarks et
those dreadful City fellows, to the effect that the chair-
man of the Crklit Fonder could not have received in that
capacity half the sum he announced his resolve to restore.
To a keenly critical eye there were certain defects about
the letter which in most cases would have suggested
caution. But who could be cold-blooded enough to be
critical in the presence of such a noble act of eelf-sacri-
Bee I'

The Herald /nits with some curiosity to know whether
Mr. Stuart Lane will follow Mr. Stuart Wortley in his re-
pudiation of the sentiments attributed to him.

nit SUPPLY 01 NUS 1000.

Estimating the effects of the drought upon the cattle
food of the country, the Daily News arrives at the conclu.
sion that there is no real prospect of the flood of cheap
meat, expected with so much dread by the British graziers
when six and twenty years ago the ant step towards free
trade in food abolished the duties on foreign live stock.
It is not only a cattle plague, sweeping away a million
head, succeeded by a year of drought, that has diminished
both the meat and the food that makes meat, egainst
which those who sigh for cheap beet and mutton have to
contend ; there is the formidable difficulty of a great and
increasing demand for better food, the result of higher
wages throughout Europe--a demand that is felt in
Vieana and Berlin, as well as in Paris and London.

am CORZANCE'S sauna Pos siaIIOTINO THE nun=

It is apparently to the principle of 00-operation,
ob-
serves the Timer, that Mr. Corrance chiefly looks for the
remedy of the existing drawback in the condition of
the English working man; but our contemporary fears
that some time must elapse before he can derive
much best& from it. Them are, no doubt,
many classes very ill paid in this country : some
more deserving of our compassion even than the
labourers of our most backward and benighted western
counties. Myriads of the human race have thriven and
prospered, both in body and soul, upon much worse fare
in all respects, and under much harder conditions of life,
than those of the English labourer with his 9s. a week, a
few allowances and casual gains, and a certain provision
against sickness, accident, or old age. For the present
the Vises recommends him not to fling his week's wages
in his master's face and enrol himself in an agricultural
trades' union.