The Sun.
London, England, 1862-01-28 00:00:00

LA Tr, AMENDMEN2 SOCIETY.

The fifth general meeting of the members of this
society was held last evening at the society's rooms,
in Waterloo- place, R. P. Collier, Esq., M.P., in the
chair, for the purpose of hearing a paper read by
Mr. G. Hastings, on " The Marriage Laws of the
United Kingdom."
The paper commenced by declaring the desirability
of assimilating the marriage laws of the United
Kingdom, which at present widely differed. There
were three essential conditions to a good marriage
law—firstly, publicity ; secondly, certainty ; and
thirdly, an authentic record. The paper then re-
viewed the marriage laws in England from the
Anglo-Saxon period down to the present time, they
being now, it was said, in a tolerably satisfactory
state. The state of Irish law was not so satisfac-
tory, inasmuch as by the act of Geo. 11, any mar-
riage performed by a Roman Catholic priest, where
the parties were not both Roman Catholics, was
considered illegal. Lord Campbell last session had
introduced a bill which, when it became law, would
remedy this evil. In other respects the law in
England and Ireland was similar. It was in Scot-
land that the greatest dissimilarity existed in the
marriage law, and which required, in the interests
of morality, immediate alteration. The law of
Scotland recognised three systems of. marriage,
the first a regular marriage before wltn. esses in
a parish church, the other two irregular, viz.,by a
verbal contract between the man and woman, in the
presence of a witness,
_ and the marriage by repute
or where a man cohabited with a woman, and
chose to say in public she was his wife. The paper
contended this was a wrong upon the woman, in-
stancing the Dalrymple and Mountgarret cases as
examples. It was the source of unchastity amongst
women, and the cause of. the frightful immorality
which prevailed to so great an extent among the
lower orders of women in Scotland. The paper
contended that this immorality could only bo
checked, and a proper protection given to the
women of Scotland, by at once assimilating the
marriage law in that country to the other parts of
the kingdom.
A long and interesting discussion ensued, in which
Messrs. Wingfield, Flood, Rochfort Clarke, E, Web-
ster, James Haywood, and the Chairman took part
—Messrs. Clarke and Webster defending the Scotch
law, and contending that immorality existed to as
great an extent in England as in Scotland.
Mr. HASTINGS replied, contending that
ttlhenrde
were more illegitimate children born in
STatiaon,
than in England in proportion to the
which he considered a sign of greater imPm°Po.
A vote of thanks was given to Mr. Hastings for
rality_.
his paper, which was ordered to be printed, and the
meeting concluded.

Ar
R jr.—The wife of Mr.
A WOMAN BURNT TO D
Robert Barnard, a respectable butcher of Watton, in Nor•
she was quite alone in the
house,
in the afternoon, when
She. could not extinguish. the
folk, was on Tuesday last burnt to death. About 4 o'clock
caught
fio;ge.hbourin,, cottage for assistance, but
her clothes
flames, and ran to a
She then appears
to hive returned
found no one at home
to her own house to get a crook of water which stood in a
She then fell and expired before any assistance
back room.
could be given. When discovered her charred and muti-
lated remains presented a most fearful spectacle. An in-
quest was held before Mr. W. Massey, deputy coroner,
the body of the decea ed, when a verdict in accord-
ance the painful nature of the case was recorded.
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