The Sun.
London, England, 1850-05-17 00:00:00

that reelieas whicis the Irrir fl!, it at ^,•res . eiea a a
to create, fancy mould in a measure encourage the, illicit,
connexions. anti this sentence of this court would be no
security against such offences.—(Hear, hear.)
Mr. F. el AULE then ruse to move a proviso to pre-
vent this Bill extending to Scotland. His original inten-
tion was to rut this proviso exactly in the same words as
it stood in the Act of 1835, from the operation of which
Act Scotland was entirely exempt. He could not un-
derstand upon what grounds a country, which was not
only opposed to such marriages as were here considered,
but in which those marriages were not even stated to
exist, should be included in this Bill—and why a law
was to be forced on Scotland, against which the
whole people were repugnant, was to him a complete
mystery. He trusted that the House, especially those
Hon. Members who professed great regard for the opi-
nions of the people cf Scotland, would not stand calmly
by and see these opinions entirely set at nought. In
the Committees that were appointed to inquire into this
subject there was not a single clergyman of the Presby-
terian denomination in Scotland found to give evidence
in favour of the measure who had the smallest weight
with the body of the people, The only Presbyterian
clergyman examined was one from Dublin, who stated
that these marriages did not exist in Ireland. Meetings
had been held in Scotland to oppose the Bill, particularly
a very large one in Edinburgh, which was intruded
upon by a paid agent of the supporters of this
Bill. The fact of this person not being permitted
to move a resolution in favour of the measure,
did not, make that meeting one whit less public.
There was a committee formed against the Bill, and that
committee was composed of ministers of the Church of
Scotland and ministers of other persuasions, and in that
committee there were various other parsons. This
showed a public feeling had existed against the Bill. He
might also refer to the petition presented by him that
day, and signed by 6,800 of the most respectable females
of Edinburgh, who declared that they regarded the Bill
as one calculated to destroy the whole fabric of society.
In Glasgow there had been a meeting against
the Bill; a petition had been presented from
Glasgow in favour of the Bill, but it was a petition
that did not emanate from a public meeting. It
was a petition got up by the same paid agent who had
endeavoured to disturb the public meeting at Edinburgh,
and who sought to get up one at Glasgow, red failed.
Such a measure was opposed to the feeling of Scotland,
and it was contrary to the Confession of Faith which
was so conformable to the feelings of the Presbyte-
rians, who, whatever divisions existed amongst them,
always adhered to that Confession of Faith. By it they
found it declared that no man might marry a nearer
connexion of his wife than he could of his own. Now
he distinctly denied that he had ever given up the re-
ligious objections to this measure. The marriage law
of Scotland might be objected to. It was a law which
enabled a man, on his death-bed, to legitimatise the
children of his concubine. It was a law that led to the
destruction of female virtue, and he had done his best
to rescind it. If the law were extended to Scotland it
would be but additional means for enabling the people
to stray from the paths of virtue; and, God knew, they
were bad enough already. Let them keep temptation
out of the way of the people, and then they would not
be accountable for their sins. He would have been
glad if the Bill had been thrown off the table; and if he
could not destroy the Bill as a general measure, yet he
entreated them not to enforce it upon a nation that re-
pudiated it. If they did so, they would gain a victory
that would be little creditable to the combined Parlia-
ment, and it would inflict a great misery upon the people.
Mr. OSWALD seconded with great pleasure the
proviso of the Right Hon. Member, as it embodied the
feeling of nearly the whole of the people of Scotland.
That feeling, too, was exhibited by 255 petitions, signed
by 14,000 persons; whilst in favour of it there was but
one petition, with one signature. He left, then, the
House to infer from that fact the feeling of the people
of Scotland upon the subject.
Mr. J. S. W ORTLEY admitted, that if he took a
course that would be most agreeable to his own feelings,
it would be at once to assent to the course proposed by
the Right Hon. Gentleman. He was bound to admit
that the measure was repugnant to the feelings of the
people of Scotland, and that a very large portion of his
own constituents had expressed their disapprobation,
and had even remonstrated with him upon it. He was,
however, influenced by the opinions of those he was
bound to respect, induced to say that it would be unwise
to make any exception. He would lose his own
esteem, and that of his, constituents, if he was to
yield against his own judgment.—(Hear, hear.) He
felt bound to carry out the principle to which he stood
pledged, and he would not shrink from his dray.
(Hear, hear.) It had been said that no minister of Scot-
land had been examined before the Committee. The
Lord Advocate and himself were members of that
Committee, and they were enabled to state that the
people of Scotland were opposed to the marriage of a
wife's sister. He confessed he was astonished at the
difference of opinion among the Scotch people on the
subject. The Right Hon. Gentleman said there had
been a public meeting in. Edinburgh against the Bill;
but the Lord Provost had ordered the police to remove
the advocates of the measure. This produced a reaction,
and a public meeting was held next day in reality in sup
port of it, which was largely attended. The Hon. Mem-
ber for Edinburgh had presented a petition from 6,800
inhabitants in its favour also; and Linlithgow met and
petitioned in its favour likewise. In the county of Ayr
there was a very great division of opinion also on the
subject. What was the reason for extending the Bill to
Scotland? It had been truly stated that the law of mar-
riage in Scotland was differeat from that of England; it
was a difference to be deplored; but the Bill would in
some sort amend it. If the Bill was not applied to Scot-
land it would aggravate the difference that existed be-
tween the marriage law of the two countries. Ho
believed, however, that the aversion to the description of
marriage in question was so great in Scotland that few
persons contracted them; but then many parties from
England crossed the border to have them celebrated in
that country. In the Confession of Faith drawn up by
John Knox there was not a word of this prohibition;
while in a contemporaneous statute only those
marriages were specified which were contrary
to the Word of God. When the Confession
of Faith of Westminster was adopted by Scot-
land, a statue was passed in. 1645 setting forth the
prohibited degrees; but that was repealed at the Resto-
ration, and never re-enacted. He held in his hand the
opinion of the procurator of the Scotch Church in Scot-
land, in favour of the principle of the BI11; and the
Lord Chief Justice Clerk was also of the same opinion.
These were the grounds on which he applied the 13111 to
Scotland. By its provisions the law of the Church of
Scotland was left intact, the confessions of faith and dis-
cipline of that Chnrch were untouched, and would stand
as binding if the Bill passed as they did at present. Any
injury to the religious people of Scotland was therefore
out of the question; and he (Mr. J. S. Wortley) would
sooner cut his right hand off than do any violence to their
feelings in that or any other matter.
Mr. COWAN would give the measure the most
strenuous opposition in his power. The 18th chapter
of Leviticus clearly established, to his mind, that
these marriages were contrary to the Word of
God. What was addressed to the man was ad-
dressed to the woman in the 16th verse; and in
the 17th verse, that view was borne out on the
ground of affinity. The social results of the Bill would
be most dangerous and disastrous to the morality of
Scotland; arid he could not comprehend the policy of
excluding, the wife's niece and including her sister—ex-
cept on the principle of straining at a gnat and swallow-
ing a camel. He felt perfectly convinced that the mind
of Scotland was unanimous against these marriages.
Ho (Mr. Cowan) had seen in one of the morning news-
papers a report of the speech of the Right Hon. Gen-
tleman, that the Confession of Faith of Scotland was the
offspring of fanaticism. This he (Mr. Cowan) denied,
and, on the contrary, looked upon it as one of the most
splendid monuments of Scottish piety left to the
people by men of whom the world was not worthy.—
(Hear, hear.) He considered it would be wrong to

press the question against the feeling of the women bf
this country.
Mr. J. S. WORTLEY denied having designated the
Confession of Faith as the .ffspring of fanaticism and
rebellion; he only meant it was a loptel in a time of re-
bellion when fanaticism pr&vailed; on the contrary, he
believed it to bo a noble monument of the piety of Scot-
land.

Sir F. THESIGER called attention to an advertise-
ment in the limes newspaper, signed " A Lover of Con-
sistency," referring to an article in the Low Reviev,
said to be written by Sergeant Manning, stating that in
Scotland a bastard could marry his halt sister, or even
his whole sister. If this was the case then the Scotch,
in respect to the Bill, were straining at a gnat and swal-
lowing a camel—aye, and even a dromedary, too. He
wished to know of the Learned Lord Advocate whether
there was any ground for this assertion of Sergeant
Manning that the law of Scotland was in such a state,
and if the fact was not that, in respect to marriage, ille-
gitimate relations stood on the same footing as legiti-
mate relations?

The LORD ADVOCATE, in reply, said that the
Honourable and Learned Gentleman could not be so
little read in the law of his own country, or in that of
Scotland, as not to know that this bad always been a
question of difficulty to determine. With respect to the
criminal law of Scotland, he believed there were one or
two instances in which the marriage of illegitimate re-
lations had been visited with punishment in the courts
of law. But nobody would now pretend to say that
the crime of incest could be charged against a per-
son who was alleged to have committed it with a
Woman with whom he had only a bastard relation-
ship. And Sir W. Moncrieff was of opinion that such
a marriage was lawful, according to his construction
of the 18th chapter of Leviticus, and according to
the law of Scotland. As to exempting Scotland from
the Bill, if the measure was passed for one country,
as a matter of necessity it ought to pass for the other ;
and it appeared to him utterly indefensible to say that
they should think it good for one country and not for
the other.
Mr. ROEBUCK said the people of Scotland were al-
most unanimously opposed to the alteration, and Par-
liament was asked to alter the law merely to save those
who had broken the law. If the Bill should come into
operation, its effect would be to sow dissensions, jea-
lousies, and hatreds in families.
Mr. COCKBURN said that, according to the autho-
rity of the Secretary at War, marriage with a deceased
wife's sister was utterly unknown in Scotland, and the
necessity for ex►.ending it to that country was, if pos-
sible, to prevent conflict between the law of Scotland and
the law of England upon the subject. He knew a case
of a man who had been regularly divorced according to
the Scotch law. He came to England and married
again. He was tried for bigamy, and sentenced to
transportation for seven years. Cases were constantly
arising out of the state of law in Scotland, and no lawyer
would venture to give an opinion as to the validity of
either marriages or divorce, iu Scotland, under some
circumstances. It was of the greatest importance that
the laws should be assimilated between the two coun-

!,r.fn ;!,-• - c
,v,ru 4,1v0i.50 Lu 61! se s; i plain
they would no: take place in Scotland, and therefore no
fears need be entertained of extending the law to Scot-
land.
Sir G. CLERK would state what was the universal
opinion of the fouling iof the people of Scotland. The
feeling against the Bill %,%a almost universal. He would
ask the House on what grounds they were going to extend
a Bill to Scotland so abhorrent to the Scottish people's
feelings? HQ was favourable' to a,similating the laws of
Scotland and EnOund, but here they were met by a
higher feeling. The people of Scotland believed these
marriages were forbidden by the law of God, and he
never recollected a question on which there had been so
much unanimity of tooling as the feeling against the Bill
in Scotland. There was no question on which the fed-
ins of the people of Scotland ought more to be consulted
and regarded than the law of marriage. The Lord Ad-
vocate, in stating the law of Scotland on this question,
had omitted an essential point of the existing !Iles, which
would be found to contradict the view he had given.
The LORD ADVOCATE here corrected the Right
Hon. Gentleman.

Sir G. CLERK repeated that as the feeling of Scot-
land had been so decidedly pronounced against this B►ll
it ought to be rejected. He should vote for the amend-
ment.

Colonel THOMPSON, as an Englishman,could not help
feeling that England w a the foremost in progress of the
three kingdoms—for whenever Bills eonsonait to the
advance of the age were passed for England, and an at-
tempt made to extend them to Scotland and Ireland, they
were always met by opposition. There was a great
difference between the sentiments of Scotchmen when in
England and when in Scotland. In England Scotch-
men had admitted to him there was in Scotland an over-
whelming ecclesiastical power which they would resist if
they could. He had himself experienced a strange
example of this feeling in Scot and. When in Scot-
land some time ago he called on a man of literary
notoriety in Princes•street. It was on Sunday, and
the conversation was on certain dry mathematical
points which were attributed to Pythagoras. He was
about to touch one or two notes on a pianoforte
which was in the room—not for the purpose of
playing " Cosi fan tutte" or anything of that sort,
but merely to illustrate the points in question by
touching one or two musical notes. "Beware how you
do that," said the Scotch gentleman; " beware how you
let the sound of a pianoforte be heard in Princes-street.
You will not feel the consequehcos, but I shall. I have
an eye on me, though you have not."—(Hear, hear.)
The truth was, many of the people of Scotland knew that
the prohibition was not supported by scriptural rules;
on the contrary, they held the prohibition to be anti-
scriptural and and anti-Christian. If these had been the
times for dying on such a subject, they would have been
as ready to do so as the men who lived in the days when
they were wont to speak of dying for the Prostestant
Reformation—but how willing they were to die in those
days he would not venture to determine,—(A laugh.)
The position of the question was exactly the same. Now
he
believed
t p ray
it
oh
ga t
and the rhecee
beseeching
noe
Com-
mittee
yto give them the advantage of the advanced state
of opinion in England on this and similar subjects.
thceot Houseland a powerful mi-
nority,
and the
ashiineg S
Mr. F. SCOTT moved that the Chairman report pro-
gress; but
After a few words from Mr. F. MAULE, the Com-
mittee divided, when there appealed—
For the proviso to exempt Scotland 137
Against it . . ••• 144
Majority ..• •-• ••• --7
The clause was then agreed to; and, on the motion of
Captain BOLDER°,
The Rinse resumed.

The CHAIRMAN reported progress, and obtained
leave to sit again on the 13:h of June.
COURT OF PREROGATIVE (IRELAND) BILL.
Mr. KEOGH moved the second reading of this Bill,
and said, it the House agreed to that motion, he shoulu
not object to the Bill being referred to a Select Com-
mittee.
Sir R. INGLIS objected to a Bill, involving such a
change as this Bill proposed, being read a second time
without any discussion, at. one o'clock in the morning.
After a short conversation, in which Mr. Reynolds,
Sir R. Inglis, and Mr. Bouverie took part,
Sir G. u REY said .he thought that was a fit subject
to be referred" to a Select Committee, and expressed a
hope that Ihe Bill would then be read a second time.
After a few words from Mr. Grogan, Mr. Keogh, and
Mr. Turner, the House divided, when there apieared—
For the adjournment of the debate ... 34
Against it... ... ... 91
Majority ... ••• •-• —57
Mr. REYNOLDS moved the adjournment of the
Home.
The House divided, when there appeared—

... 20
••. ••• 95
Majority ... ••• ••• —75
Colonel CHATTERTON moved the adjournment of
he debate.

For the motion ...
Againit it. .

After a short conversation the House divided, whin
here appeared—
For the motion ... ... 20
Against it 83

Majority ... ... .. —63
An How. MEMBER again moved the adjournment of
he House.

Sir G. GREY recommended the Hon. and Learned
Member for Athlone not to persevere on that occasion
with the second reading of the Bill, as it was always in
the power of a minority effectually to thwart the pro-
gress of business in the House.
Mr. KEOGH acceded to the suggestion.
The debsta on the second reading of the Bill was then
postponed till this day.
STAMP DUTIES (No. 2).

The order of the day for bringing up the report on
these duties having been read,
The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER stated,
in reply to Sir H. Willoughby, that he had no means of
estimating the precise effect which the Bill would have
in the different portions of the scale, because h• could
not ascertain what was the special use made of any par-
ticular class of stamps.
The report was then brought up, and leave was given
to bring in a Bill founded on the resolutions.
Mr. ANSTEY obtained leave to bring in a Bill to
amend the law relating to engines used in the rivers and
on the coast of Ireland for the taking of fish.
The Marquis of CHANDOS obtained leave to bring
in a Bill to provide for the better maintenance and repair
of bridges in boroughs.
The House adjourned at Twenty minutes put Two
o'clock.

.NEWSVEtVDERS' BENEVOLENT AND
PROVIDENT INSTITUTION.
Last night the eleventh annual general meeting of
the above society was held at Anderton's Hotel,
Fleet-street.
It may be stated that some years ago this institu-
tion was formed for the purpose of granting tempo-
rary relief, as well as permanent assistance, to mas-
ters and servants engaged as venders of newspapers.
The chair was taken by James Harmer, Esq., the
president. The business of the evening was com-
menced by the chairman calling on the secretary to
read th et
haantntuhael
institution
was
From
n
that m
i t ap-
pearedus
in a position
give great satisfaction to every well-regulated mind,
and that its proceedings have not been unattended
with success. At the first annual dinner which took
place at the Albion Tavern, in the November of last
year, at which Mr. Charles Dickens presided, no less
a sum than 2001. was subscribed and added to the funds.
It was the duty of the committee to state, that during
the past year not one application for relief had
been made by any subscriber. One party, how-
ewas not a subscriber,
and r,
that r e 1
factief who
was somewhat fearful of
making any application. He was relieved, however,
v e
who had receivedfro m
and the pains of death-bed in some measure soothed.
The report concluded by calling on the newsvenders
and parties concerned to do their best to promote the
objects of the society. The treasurer was then called
upon to read his report of the fieancial department.
The following account was then read :-Balance at
audit May 15, 1849, in the treasurer's hands 11/.
105.9 d. Receipts-Profit annual -dinner in Nov.
last, 2011. 64. Bd.; dividends on stock, 301 1 ls. Bd. ;
donations and subscriptions, 441.25. 6cl---2761. Os. 10d.
total 2871. 112. 7d. 1850-May 14, balance in trea-
surer's hands, 571. 10s. 10d. ; stock in the Three per
Cent. Consols, 1,2001. Paymenta-Purchase of
stock, 1911. 17s. 6d.; pension to J. Edwards, 16/.
temporary relief cases, 41.; printing, Sm., 81. 9s. Id. ;
use of hall, 21.105. ; collector's commission, 9/. 43. 2d.;
secretary's salary, 51.; May, 1850, balance in trea-
surer's hands, 571. 10s. 10d. ; total, 287/. 118. 7d.
Mr. WILD moved that the report be adopted,
printed, and distributed among the subscribers. He
hoped that better days were now smiling upon them
than formerly, when they bad to contend with several
difficulties. He saw no reason whatever why that in
stitution should not become one of the first in the
metropolis. Only one person had become a candidate
during the last year, which arose from the circum-
stance that the rules required that no person should
be a pensioner on the funds unless he had previously
been a subscriber for five years, and employed in the
news trade for ten years; but as their society became
older no doubt the applicants would be much increased
in number, for most certainly the news trade deserved
the support of the public.
Mr. THOMPSON seconded the motion. He thought
it was the duty of every news agent to join their so-
ciety, no less from benevolent motives than as a mea-
sure of positive prudence. He trusted their funds
would be so much increased that they might be en-
abled to pension a large number of candidates.
The motion was then passed unanimously.
Mr. GILBERT moved the second resolution, record-
ing the deep obligations of the society to Charles
Dickens, Esq., for his kindness in filling the chair at
their dinner in November last, by which the society
had been so much benefited, and that a copy of the
resolution be forwarded to that gentleman. It was
the duty both of masters and servants to aid that in-
stitution to the utmost of their power. It was a dis-
grace to any member of their trade who did not sub•
scribe to their funds.
Nr. TERRY seconded the motion, which was unani-
mously adopted.
Mr. MERRETT proposed a vote of thanks to the
stewards of the late annual dinner, which, being se-
conded by Mr. Gravett, was unanimously adopted.
Mr. noels moved thanks to those journals which
had hitherto noticed their proceedings, which being
seconded by Mr. COUTTS, was adopted.