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

the prohibition would not prevail against the instincts
of human nature when they acted in unison with that
which men i❑ their consciences believed to be Eanctioned
by Divine law.—(Hear.)
Mr. P. WOOD said he would not be tempted into any
argument upon the principle of the Bill, but as the Right
Hon. and Learrel Memter for Bute had made a pointed
allusion to a statement of his, involving a matter of fact,
the Committee would, perhaps, allow him to occupy
the it attention for a few minutes. He had said that it
was a monstrous fallacy to suppose that the poor were
in any way interested in this question. That there were
one or two rich men deeply interested in it he well knew.
(Hear, hear.) He stated that there were in the
parishes of St. Margaret and St. John 20,000 or 30.000
poor. Had ho been speaking of the entire parish, he
would have stated the number at 60,000. Ile said he
had taken pains to obtain his information from persons
in the habit of mixing among the poor—namely, those
employed in distributing charity, which again showed
that he was speaking of the poor only, and that he had
only been able to discover one csse. The Right Hon.
and Learned Gentleman now stated that there were
twenty-one cases in the parish of marriages of all classes.
Mr. S. WORTLEY—SmaII shopkeepers and artisans.
Mr. P. WOOD—Small shopkeepers were a very wide
class. Persons who distributed charity did not go
amongst small shopkeepers. But they were not the pour.
—(Hear, hear.) The commissioners estimated the
number of these marriages at 1,500, of which there
were only forty among the poor, by whom ho meant
labourers and mechanics. That was about 1-35:h of the
whole. Now if he took a 35th of these twenty-one cases
it would not give one. He knew some rich men, one he
knew very well, who was continually putting advertise-
ments in the newspapers and printing pamphlets o❑ this
subject, and who had sent him the Times containing the
advertisement, and afterwards an exact copy of it,
printed on a very handsome sheet of paper, stating that
a person who had bee❑ employed by the Church Mis-
sionary Society to visit the poor had found three other
cases. On inquiry, however, it turned out that he could
not recollect any of their names. Still if he had, four
amongst 30,000 was not so large a number. But ho had
received a letter from a clergy man in the Potteries,
stating that he knew a great many such cases, and that be
had married one couple himself. His answer was, that
he was sorry to hear that he had married people
under such circumstances ; and that with regard
to the other cases, he should he much obliged if he
would furnish him with the names; but he had never
heard from him since.—(Hear, hear.) All this confirmed
him in his view. The fact was that the case very seldom
happened among the poor, because they all married so
young that it seldom happened that, when the wife
died, any of her sisters were to be found unmarried. He
was surprised to hear the Hen. and Gallant Member
for Bradford justify this ex post facto clause, because a
number of excellent people had found it right to break
an immoral and mischievous law, considering that it
had been the law from the time of the Heptarchy to the
year 1835. It was said the law was necessary to protect
innocent children; but the Hon. and Gallant Colonel
refused last year to protect the innocent fruits of mar-
riages with the deceased wife's niece. But, look at the
preposterous nature of the clause, speaking of it as a
matter of conscience. If a man had married his wife's
sister, and bad not committed the second immorality of
deserting her and marrying another woman, the mar-
riage was good and the children legitimate; but if he
deserted her and married another, the marriage was
illegal.—(Hear.) Another absurdity was involved in
the 4th clause, which while it legitimatised the fruits
of such marriages, made a reservation of estates and
titles of honour vested before the passing of the Act,
which were not to be thereby displaced, so that a man
might find himself legitimate, but at the same time
might see his younger brother a baronet or a peer.
Mr. R. PALMER said the question before the Com-
mittee involved a principle of very great importance.
The question was whether they would or would not
accede to the views which were, at least, implied in the
amendment namely, that they would recognise the
right of the subjects of the nation to say that the duty
of obedience to the statute law in cases of marriage was
limited by the extent to which the conscience of the
individual recognised that law as binding upon him by a
higher sanction than their Act of Parliament? The
principle involved was, he repeated, of the greatest im-
portance; and if they acceded to what was now proposed
they would be holding out a premium to disobedience,
and pointing out a way to get rid of restraint. It was
telling them that the way to make their children legiti-
mate was to disobey the law. Let ,them only get up
an agitation, get lawyers to take up the matter,
send gentlemen round the country to collect
evidence, newspapers to comment on their pro-
ceedings and discuss the question, and then—
not upon grounds of theology, but of expediency—
they would induce the Parliament to alter the law—they
would get Parliament to say that there was no obliga-
tion to obey the law while it existed. With regard to
the observation of the Hon. and Learned Member for
Southampton, that a doubt existed as to whether those
marriages were valid after the passing of Lord Lynd-
hurst's Act, he totally denied that any doubt existed. It
was true that there were lawyers to be found in the
country who were ready to give any opinion you wish
upon any question.—(Great cheering and laughter.) lie
would tell them how—let them seek the man whom they
thought would give the opinion they wished for, or let
them go to a man of little experience or practice in the
law; or let them consult one of the me❑ employed to
collect evidence; or state their case clearly and send it
to a man who had not time to consider it carefully.—
(Oh!) He could refer to the case of one of the most
honest and upright judges on the bench, who gave an
opinion one way, and af,erwards—in a judgment deli-
vered from the bench when he had carefully considered
the law of the case—gave his opinion the contrary way.
Mr. BOUVEIIIE having given a vote against going
into Committee, and been defeated, considered the prin-
ciple of the Bill had now been affirmed, and that it
would ultimately pass. With regard to the amendment
before the Committee, ho had no doubt whatever as to
the vote he was about to give. He should support the
clause as it stood, because here was a class of persons
who were themselves perfectly innocent, and to whom
a simple act of justice was being done by the present

measure.
Mr. DRUMMOND did not agree with the Hon. Gen
tleman who had last spoken, that the Bill must pass as a
matter of course. He could not understand that system
of legislation which declared a thing contrary to the law
of God at one time, and in accordance with it at another
time. He regetted that those Hon. Members who dis-
approved of the Bill had meddled with it at all in Com-
mittee. He did not admit that it would pass. For his
part he should divide the House against the third read-
ing, and would make use of every advantage in his power
to destroy the Bill in Committee if he could. At the
same time he could not see how they could
refuse to legitimatise those children. The
Church, so long as it could express an opinion, was
unanimous in condemning those marriages. His belief
was that, looking at the fact that the whole people of
Scotland was violently opposed to it, seeing that the
great mass of the people of that country were opposed
to it—(No, no)—he confessed that his belief was that if
the Dissenters supported the present measure, it was
because they thought that it would give another stab to
the authority of the Church, and that it was more upon
that ground than any other that it received the sanction
of the Dissenting body.
Mr. HEALDhai supported the Bill in all stages, be-
lieving that it was a measure of sound and wise legisla-
tion. He was satisfied that marriages of that kind had
taken place for years past to a Very great extent, and
adopting the principle that those marriages were not
prohibited by the law of God, he thought they would
not refuse to extend the advantages of the Bill to that
innocent portion of her Majesty's subjects specially con-
templated by the clause under discussion.
Mr. ANSTEY said whatever opinion the Church of
Scotland had pronounced with regard to the measure,
the recent decision in the case of Gorham and the
Bishop of Exeter showed them that the Church of
England had no leading authority or organ by which
to convey her opinions upon matters of discipline or
doctrine. As to the Church of Rome, her teaching
was pretty clear on the subject, and was indicated by
the evidence given before a Committee of that Home.
It appeared that the genius of the people of Ireland
was against such marriages; but in England and in other
countries, where the Roman Catholic religion obtained,
these marriages were common; and Dr. Wiseman had
declared that he had granted the usual dispensation in
hundreds and hundreds of cases during the brief period
that he had acted as vicar apostolic of the London dis•
trict. The Hon. Member for Surrey had repeated the
word " dispensation ;" but he was too good a canonist
and too good a theologian not to know that there could
be no dispensation of a prohibition of :the law of God,
but only of prohibitions of the law of the Church. As
regarded the social bearing of the question, he would
mention one fact. In the north of England a marriage
took place since the passing of the Act of William IV.
The man had married the sister of his deceased wife. By
his first wife he had no children. By the second he had
a large family, who were pronounced by the law to be
illegitimate. If the father should die intestate the crown
would become entitled to his large property.
Colonel THOMPSON—Was he a Roman Catholic ?
Mr. ANSTEY said he was. He was in favour of the
clause as it stood, which gave the Bill a retrospective
character, and would consequently provide a remedy for
the case to which he had just referred.
Mr. MULLINGS would ask the Committee, whether
they had considered the rights of other children in re•
minder ?—(Hear, hear.) Was a brother to be de-
prived of his rights in remainder by the circumstance of
his elder brother having married his deceased wife's sis-
ter by whom alone he had children, who would be de-
clared legitimate if this Bill were to have a retrospective
operation?
The C3ramittee then divided, when there appeared—
For the original clause 111
Against it ... 68
Majority against the amendment —43
The clause was then agreed to.
On clause 3 being proposed,
Mr. R. PALMER took occasion to comment upon
the weakness of the Bill, by the language of this clause.
The proviso, in effect, took away the supposed benefit of
the measure from a person who had committed adultery
with his wife's sister, and who had been convicted of the
offence during his lifetime. This qualification of a con-
viction by a court deprived the measure of any reme-
dial power in respect to the particular offence referred
to. He %anted to know how this proviso could operate
in the great multitude of cases which arose amongst the
poorer classes of society. Why, to such persons the
law of divorce was practically a dead letter. This clause
stands as a warning against the consequences that were
likely to follow from this measure. Since the Bill had
been before under their consideration a case of this
kind came before their courts. A man and a woman
were both recently executed in Cambridge for the
murder of the wife of the man, who was also the sister
of the woman. This murder was occasioned by an im-
proper intimacy of this description. If they destroyed

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