The Sun.
London, England, 1864-07-07 00:00:00

THE YELVERTON CASE,

HOUSE OF LORDS.
YELVERTON V. YELVERTON LONG-WORTH).

This morning, at 12 o'clock, this case was called on
before the Home of Lords.

Mr Relt, Q.C-, in commencing his reply on brha]f of the
Hon. Major Yelverton, the appellant, said that eluting the
adjournment he had been able to condense his arguments,
and hoped their lordships would bear with him through the
observations he had to make, which should be strictly per-
tinent to the questions at issue. The learned counsel went
through the early history of the case with reference to
the promise, which, he urged, had not been proved, and
the respondent's counsel had failed to deduce
it. The cases that had been cited were under
decidedly diff.,rent circumstances, and not entitled to
the weight that the Lord Advocate had rested upon them.
With regard to the meeting in Scotland, it was absurd to
suppose that the respondent was not aware of the law of
Scotland, and had marriage been intended she would have
taken care to preserve some strong evidence of that mar-
riage, according to the law there, and also in Ireland if a
secret marriage had taken place there or elsewhere.
There must be mutual interchange of consent in Scot-
land, and their lordehips must have evidence of when
the interchange took place, and that must be when
the copula took place, pr immediately before. (He (Mr
Rolt) took it that it would be their lordships' judgment
that the promise must take place in Scotland, and could not
be carried into Scotland to be the foundation of evidence of
the marriage. He pre-supposed the promise must be
seriously made ; but if a woman surrendered herself with-
out marriage she knew she was committing fornication,
and no marriage. _ _ _

Lord Brougham—The copula must be with the intent
of consummating the marriage.
Mr hell put his prop mitiun to be that there was a
serious promise, and that the parties must consider it to
be so. Had the promise been made and copula fol-
lowed, then the law considered that as the
mutuel intenhange of cooseut. Noting the alleged
promise and the correspondence, their lordships
would not look at a single letter or a single passage, but the
entire correspondence, and unless it proved that the appel-
lant stood towards the respondent in the character of an
accepted lover there was no proof of the promise. The
learned counsel at much length proceeded to cite some cases
with regard to a profuse de future. That was an arbitrary
and positive law, which did not consider an interchange of
`consent as copula assured it, but upon. the argument on the
other side, even taking their statement to be true, it would
seem that if a man promise to marry a woman while they
were on a voyage from India, and afterwards cohabited for
one night in Scotland, that would be a marriage according
to the law of Scotland; and it would be most important
that the judgment of the House of Lords should be well and
maturely considered when so large an interest was involved.
Referring to the marriage of habit and repute, the illicit
connexion between tee parties hod a considerable bearing
upon the law of the case, of which he would treat presently.
As to the illicit intercourse, and how far it affee!ed the pro-
mise, he (Mr Rolt) should urge without fear of contradic-
tion that the law made it, that a promise made during
illicit intercourse was not a valid promise. The Attorney..
General had argued that no intercourse had taken place in
Ireland until alter the scene which took place in a chapel at
Rostrevor, but no one but the Attorney-General could have
that opinion if they real ono tittle of the evidence. The
facts, the circumstances, the documents, everything might be
construed to prove, if they proved anything, that there was
a general promise subsequent to or during the time of the
illicit intercourse; bat, even looking at the letters and
words, their lordships would remember that promise was
one thing and intention to promise another. The learned
counsel read portions of letters supporting his views of the
case, and cited further cases on the Effect of copula
after promise or before as the case might be.
(The case was proceeding when we went to press.)