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

LATE' AMENDMENT 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.
i 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
church,
first
regulara
the h
other
marriageerw
o irregular,b efoe
viz., y
witnesses
b in
a parish 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 be
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 there
were more illegitimate children born in Scotland
than in England in proportion to the. population,
which he considered a sign of greater immorality.
A vote of thanks was given to Mr..Hastingb for
his paper, which was ordered to be printed, and the
meeting concluded.

A WOMAN BURNT TO DEATH.—The wife of Mr.
Robert Barnard, a respectable butcher of \\ration, in Nor-
folk, was on Tuesday last burnt to death. About 4 &clock
in the afternoon, when she was quite alone in the house,
her clothes caught firo. She could not extinguish the
water
e before
.ef
owhichr
charred
stood in a
room. h
flames, and ran to a neighbouring cottage for assistance, but
found no one at home. She then appears to have returned
to her own hllese then to
Wheng feet l
lad
aicsnreodo ovkere expired
dh
any
backaansadismtanuteie-
eouldbegiveSn.
house
lated remains presented a most fearful spectacle. An in-
quest was held before Mr. W. Massey, deputy
coroner,
the body of the deceas.ed
upon 5 when a verdict in
accord-
ance with the painful nature of the case was recorded.
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