The Sun.
London, England, 1869-05-21 00:00:00

MARRIED BY MISTAKE.

A correspondent sends to the Northern Whig the follow-
ing extraordinary story :—On Saturday last a marriage
ceremony took place in a little town not twenty miles
from Belfast. A youthful couple in humble circumstances
—a Mr. Y. and a Miss H.—had made arrangements for
becoming man and wife, and presented themselves before
the curate of the village at the appointed hour. It would
seem that the parties, before facing such a serious ceremony,
had taken the "least taste" of something to "keep their
courage cheery." When they presented themselves before
the curate to have the ceremony performed, the bridegroom,
either through ignorance of the required form, or modesty,
or perhaps a mixture of both, kept rather a retiring
position in the group, and his best man—Mr. P.—had to
encourage him to stand forward. The intended bridegroom's
modesty, however, still held him back, and he motioned
to his best man to see to the matter being duly got
through. The curate observing this movement, and
misapprehending it, desired the persons motioned to
stand forward, and repeat after him. Mr. P. rather
demurred to this appeal, but the curate went on to say,
"Repeat after me, I, James, do take thee," Scc. ; and,
strange as the statement may appear, the young man was
so dumbfounded that he did actually repeat the form of
words aftepthe curate, performed the ceremony of putting
on the ring,&c., while the bride repeated after the curate as
desired, until the ceremony was concluded ! The best
man, with all clue disinterestedness, at the close, at once
gave up the bride to the intended bridegroom. So matters
remained till Monday morning, when the parties most
interested had a meeting with a view to having the matter
set to rights. It soon appeared, however, that more
serious difficulties than they apprehended stood in the
way of this, and that, in order to effect the end desired, a
visit to the Divorce Court, or even an Act of Parliament,
may be necessary.

VIE NORTH NORFOLK ELECTION

INQUIRY.

I The North Norfolk election inquiry was resumed on
Thursday, and further evidence with respect to treating
was given. One witness stated that he had voted five
times, and up to the last election had always been paid.
He held the opinion that a man ought to be paid for his
conveyance to the poll, and to be treated. Another
witness, who was asked to vote* for Mr. Walpole, one
of the Conservative candidates, spoke to his having
been treated to gin and beer. Other witnesses proved
that railway tickets had been paid for. The most singular
evidence was given by Richard Atkins Vine, who stated
that he was a shoemaker at Norwich, and was at Yar-
mouth on the day of the election. He was at the Con-
servative committee-room during the day, upstairs and
downstairs. It was not true that he received
£5O 2s. fid. from Mr. Cornelius Hunter, to be
expended in bribery. He made a statement to
this effect, for which he was to have received £25
from the Liberal party, but the statement was untrue.
(Applause from some of the auditory.)—Mr. Justice
Blackburn said the man, by Lis own account, was
behaving in the most disgraceful manner, and that any
person should applaud was a thing not to be tolerated.
—The witness said he made the statement to shew the
manner in which the Liberal party was getting up evi-
dence. He went over to Yarmouth, pesple were pointed
out to him, and he adopted them as having been bribed.
He went over to Yarmouth to see if by any possibility he
could persuade by moral means persons to vote for the
Conservatives. Mr. Serjeant Ballantine : What do
yon mean by moral means ?—Witness : My persuasive
tongue. (Laughter.) I argued with them upon the
Church and State question.—Mr. Serjeant Ballantine :
Oh, you put it upon religious grounds. Witness :
I went the whole length. I received £3 2s.
for the whole of my work from Mr. Diver.
I was watching the Liberal party. The witness entered
into further details of the statements which he had made
to the solicitor of the Liberal party.—Mr. Justice Black-
burn said he did not believe one word of what the witness
had said, either on one side or the other. He trusted that
no one either in Norwich or Yarmouth would ever dis-
grace himself by being in company with one who had so
disgraced himself out of his own mouth.

A young gentleman, about 18 years of age, was
taken out of the Thames at Battersea on Thursday, appa-
rently but recently drowned. The body was taken to the
Swan Tavern for identification. Deceased was dressed in
black coat, light trousers, and Blucher boots.
King John's Tower, one of the oldest buildings
of Windsor Castle, is now in course of restoration by
Messrs. Watson and Burfoot, who are also repairing the
magazine Tower, on the north side of the palace, a short
distance from the Winchester Tower.
THE MAY MEETINGS. Amongst the annual
meetings held in London on Thursday were those of the
Sailors' Home, presided over by Admiral Sir W. Bowles ;
'he British and Foreign Sailors' Society, at,..which Mr. C.
Reed, M.P., took the chair ; and the Alexandra Orphanage
'or Infants. There was a bazaar at St. James's Hall on
behalf of the Missions to Seamen ; the Warehousemen and
Clerks' Schools held their half-yearly meeting ; and the
distribution of prizes to the pupils of Westminster
Hospital took place in the board-room of that institu
tion.

THE LAST or His RACE,—The last of a race which
died with him, Billy Lanny, known as " ICing Billy," the
last of the aboriginal natives of Tasmania, has died at
Hobart Town. For a long time he bad followed the life of
a whaler, and he was very popular among the seamen, as a
good-natured jolly fellow, and an amusing companion. He
was not particularly proud of his ancestry, and when his
portrait was taken by Mr. 'Woolley, in 18C6, for the Inter-
colonial Exhibition, he objected to the photograph as being
"too black for him." He was, however, a pure bred Tas-
manian aboriginal, and as black as a sloe. He was on the
regatta ground in January 1868, when his Royal Highness
the Duke of Edinburgh patronised that festival, and,
attired in a blue suit, with a gold lace band round his cap,
he was presented to the Prince, who received him with
kindly consideration.

THE AMERICANS IN ALASKA..—The way our
troops are " civilising off the face of the earth " the Alaska
Indians, rather beats anything in our previous history.
Both our army and navy have gone at them this time, and
they have gloriously "destroyed various villages and
stockaded forts" of the ancient inhabitants—of the poor
little stumpy troglodytes who have owned the snow•clad
region and lived on its fish ever since the days of Noah.
We are told that in this case it was thought better to
destroy the huts than to execute the people, as they place
little value upon their lives, but will suffer dreadfully for
want of shelter. This is altogether shocking. It is about
time now for General Grant to do what he threatened
some time ago—withdraw our troops from Alaska alto-
gether, if they cannot govern it without killing off the
few icy-fingered Kakes who give life and diversity to its
vast snow-covered solitudes. --New York Times.

THE WORKHOUSE IN DANOEK.—TIio Oswestry
Advertiser reports an amusing discussion which took place
at a recent meeting of the poor.law guardians in that
town, as to whether the girls in the workhouse should
wear hats or bonnets. A proposal on the part of some
benevolent persons to supply them with plain black straw
hats free of charge excited the suspicion rather than the
gratitude of the guardians. "It's like the altar-cloth,"
exclaimed one of them, " and we shall be going on to
Roman Catholicism." Another detected the germ of a
social revolution. " I shall deprecate it very strongly,"
he said. " I know my missis' won't allow one of her
servant-girls to wear a hat. If the children are brought
up to wear cock-a-lorum hats here, they'll want to wear
them when they go away. They'll be wanting feathers
next, and then you'd have young gentlemen coming
courting after them.'' Finally one of the guardians moved
that they should " stick to the bonnets," which was
nreyd to,