The Sun.
London, England, 1868-07-22 00:00:00

APPROPRIATION BILL

This bill Was read a third time and passed.

INLAND REVENUE BILL.

Thisbill, as amonded, was considered and agreed to.
' ARMY CE/APLALNS BILL.
This bill was road a third time and paned►

the scheme,
Mr. GLADSTONE expressed his readiness to forward
the bill, not only because he held that the telegraph ser-
vice might be greatly improved by transference to the
Post-office, but because, until the inquiry contemplated
was completed, the interests to be dealt with could not be
fully known. Mr. Goschen, he held, had shown very
good grounds for believing that the best bargain had not
been made, and that without giving the Post-office a
monopoly the Exchequer would be a loser. It was only
a sense of equity which could prevent the Government
from competing with the Telegraph companies, and there
was no ground therefore of a high order for deviating from
ordinary principles in dealing with them. Mr. Gladstone
agreed entirely with Mr. Goschen that the now Parlia-
ment would not be in any way bound by this bill.
Mr. NORWOOD and Mr. E. POTTER, as members
of tho select committee, expressed complete confidence in
Mr. Scudamore's figures, and in the certain success of the
project, though Mr. Norwood admitted that the terms of
the bargain were heavy. But the committee bad no option
at the time of the year but to confirm them or throw out
the bill.

The only opponents of tbe bill on principle were Mr
LEVESON-GOWER, who objected to inaugurating so great
a change in our national habits without a fuller inquiry
and Mr. R. N. PHILLIPS.
Sir J. GRAY supported the bill, and after some re-
mat ka from Alderman Lusk the house went into Com-
mittee on it.

On clause 4 Mr. OHILDERS proposed au amendment
referring the whole question of terms of purchase to arbi-

(ration, which

The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER resisted
pointing out that the parties had complied with the first
alternative of the Lands Clauses Consolidation Act by
coming to an agreement, and had submitted it to Parlia-
ment. On the whole he held that a settled bargain was
safer than arbitration. Mr. HUNT took the opportunity of
defending his arrangement against the criticisms of Mr.
Goschen, and read a letter from a well-known firm of City
capitalists (whom, however, ho did not name), offering a
guarantee of 4 per cent. on the surn•to be raised ender the
bill, on condition of receiving the net profits from the
working of the telegraphs for 15 years.
The amendment was negatived without a division.
On clause 15 Air. AYI-tTON proposed• an amendment
fixing a sixpenny rate for the first 30 words of every mes-
sage within the metropolitan district, but withdrew it in
favour of a similar proposal from Mr. Watkin extended to
all towns of over 30,000 population. On a division it was
negatived by 68 to 25.

Tho rest of the sitting was spent mainly in committee
on the Poor Relief Bill, on which there was a long preli-
minary discussion, its opponents pressing the Govern-
nient, but. without avail, to drop it for the session. To the
series of clauses, beginning with clause 6, designed to fa
cilitate the religious instruction of the inmates of work-
houses by ministers of their own persuasion, a strenuous
opposition was offered by Mr. Newdegate, Mr. T. Cham-
bers, and other " Protestant " members. They were de-
fended by Lord E. Howard, Mr. Baines, and others on the
plea of religious equality, and Mr. Villiers pointed out
that they only carried out what had been the law for more
than 30 years, though it had been evaded for the want of
a "creed register," which clause 6 provides for. On a
division the clause was crrried by 58 to 27.
Mr. Newdegate was beaten on an attempt to report pro-
gress by 55 to 23; but after two or three more clauses had
been agreed to, the committee was adjourned until to-
day

The other business was disposed of, and the houso ad-
ourned at a quarter to 2 o'clock.

THE LAW OF MARRIAGE.

A case tried the other day at Derby, of which a
report appeared in the Times of Monday, throws a
good deal of light on several subjects which have
much interest at present, especially upon the con-
dition of the laws relating to marriage, and upon
the position which is and must be occupied, not only
in our own, but in every country in which complete
religious freedom prevails, by the Roman Catholic
Church. A man of the name of Fernando, an
Oriental person, half Portuguese, half Cingalese,
was living in Dublin with a Scotch girl, who passed
as his wife. He was a Roman Catholic, and she,
till she made his acquaintance, had been a Pro-
testant, though under his influence she had become
a Roman Catholic. He represented to a Roman
Catholic priest, to whom he was known, that they
had already been married in Scotland, and that he
wished the Scotch marriage to be confirmed. He also
represented that his wife had for more than a year
ceased toattend any Protestant place of worship and
attended Roman Catholic chapels. Having satisfied
himself as well as he could of the truth of this story, the
priest, Mr. Daniel Jones, had the woman instructed
in the Roman Catholic creed, formally received her
into the Church, and performed a ceremony of mar-
riage between her and Fernando gt per verba de
praesenti." The Oriental person afterwards came
to England, deserted his wife, and married another
woman before the registrar at Derby. He was tried
for this offence, and the question of his guilt
turned upon the validity of the first marriage.
This involved various points. It was admitted in
the first place that a priest in orders, whether Pro-
testant or Catholic, can perform the marriage cere-
mony in Ireland without any of the conditions as
to banns, &c., which have been required in Eng-
land ever since Lord Hardwick's Marriage Act in
the middle of the last century. It was further ad-
mitted that under the provisions of an Irish Act of
Parliament, passed much about the same time, a
Roman Catholic priest cannot perform a valid
marriage between parties either of whom is or
has within twelve months before the marriage pro-
fessed himself or herself to be a Protestant. The
questions upon which the particular case turned
were whether Mrs. Fernando had been, or had pro-
fessed herself to be, a Protestant within twelve
months before the marriage, and whether the cere-
mony was a complete marriage " per verba de prae-
senti," or only a blessing on a presumed antecedent
marriage. As to the second roint, the evidence of
the priest who performed the marriage was uncon-
tradicted, and prevailed. As to the first point the
evidence was more or less incomplete. The parties
had represented to the priest at the time of their
marriage that the woman had attended a Roman
Catholic chapel for more than twelve
months before, and a witness swore that ho had

had conversations with her on religions subjects
in the course of the year, in which she had de-
scribed herself as a Roman Catholic, and that she
had for six months before the marriage attended a
Roman Catholic chapel, and it was contended by
the counsel for the Crown that the burden of prov-
ing that she hid been a Protestant within the
statutory period Was on the prisoner. The judge
took this view, and the jury convicted the prisoner.
The curiosity of the case consi,ted in two things
the strangeness of the state of the law upon which
it depended, and the light which it incidentally
threw upon the position which the Roman Catholic
Church is, and by its very nature must perpetually
be, tending to assume in every c nintry of an lie-
iß;rirtin in imperio. Upon the first of these points
nothing need be added to the article which appeared
upon the subject in yesterday's Times, but the
seeondpointisa very curious one. Comparatively few
people are aware of the extent to which legal lan-
guage, 1. gal conceptions, and legal functions are
mixed up with the doctrines of the Church of Rome,
or of the extreme technical pree7sion with which they
are carried out to their legal consequences. This,
however, is implied in and is inseparable from the
whole theory of confession and absolution. The
" tribunal of penitence," as they call, it, has a sys-
tem of law of its own as elaborate and in many re-
spects as definite and technical as Westminster Hall
itself. How bad a name this system has gained for
itself under the title of casuistry is known to most
people, and any one who will take the trouble to
glance over .the serial volumes called the "Church
and the "World" may readily satisfy himself as to
the anxiety of the Ritualists to revive in the Church
of England the authority of the law and the court
by which it is administered. There is hardly any
part of human life over which it does not exercise
more or less influence, but there is no subject on
which it is so minute, so technical, and so precise
as marriage and the duties connected with it. A
good deal of this theory was incidentally broUght
out in the course of Fernando's trial, and a few
points may be mentioned which give an idea of the
completeness and elaboration of. the system. Theo-
logically, the question at issue was this : A, a Ca-
tholic, cohabits in Scotland with B, a Protestant,
and asks a priest, not being the parish priest, to
perform a marriage between them in Dublin.
What is the position of the parties ? First, what is
to be said of the Scotch cohabitation in an ecclesi-
astical and theological point of view ? The answer
is very singular. Like most other great and
ancient institutions, the Roman Catholic Church
has what may be called its common law
and its statute law. According to.its common
law, which prevailed down to the Council
of Trent in almost every part of Europe except
England, marriage was regarded as a contract
which depended on the consent of ,the contracting
parties, and which, like other contracts, might be
entered into without any particular form, and
without the presence or blessing of any priest. Ac-
cording to the law of many countries, the mere fact
of cohabitation was regarded as raising a presump-
tion of such a contract. Thus a clandestine mar-
riage might be contracted in a moment of passion
without witnesses, without writing, without any
sort of ceremony, and its existence afterwards
might be proved by the fact of cohabitation, and
might be legally established, though it is true that
such marriages would expose the contracting parties
to ecclesiastical censures. The Council of Trent
declared all such marriages to be null and void,
and it is one of the great reproaches whichjeremy
Taylor levels against the Council that it affected
to make void by its canons that which was enacted,
as he says, by the law, of nature. The decrees of
the Council, however, have never been promulgated
in Scotland. llence, according to Roman Catholic
theories, the old ecclesiastical law still prevails
there and thus, when Mr. Jones came to consider
the case of Fernando, he was led to the conclusion
that if his story was true the marriage (of which
the cohabitation would be evidence, whether con-
clusive or not we do not pretend to say) was valid—
i.e., that., according to the laws of the Church of
Rome, Fernando and Mrs. Fernando were, to a)

intents and purposes, man and wife, with all the
rights and duties of that relation. Though valid,

however, the marriage was, in his opinion, not law-
ful, that is to say, being clandestine it would
expose the parties to ecclesiastical censures, and he
also swore that he supposed that it was not legal,
i.e., not binding by the law of Scotland, an opinion
in which he may not have been right. It was thus
a case of a marriage valid but not lawful, because
the place in which it was said to have been
_ _

celebrated was one in which the decrees of the Coun-
cil of Trent had not superseded the ancient laws of
the Church, which they abolished in other parts of
the world. Mr. Jones, in answer to questions put
to him, further illustrated the distinction between

valid and legal marriage by the case of a marriage
contracted by persons who had been divorced by the
Divorce Court. Such a marriage, he said, would be
legal, but not valid. A marriage between a Pro-
testant and a Roman Catholic according to the rites
of the Church of England would be valid and legal,
but not lawful--i.e., it would be an ecclesiastical

offence. Such illustrations as these set in a singu-
larly clear light the character of the Roman Ca-

tholic Church as a system with its own laws and

its own courts, altogether independent of, and
at times conflicting with, the law of the land, for-
bidding what it permits, and at times permitting
what it forbids. For instance, a marriage within
the prohibited degrees under a papal dispensation
would be valid and lawful according to the law of
the Church, though null and void by the law of the
land. Of all the strange things which aro going on
in the world hardly any one is so strange as this, if
it is viewed in its true light. Everywhere Church
and State are being separated and are confronting
each other, and we certainly seem to have got so far
on our way that the two systems face each other
without anathemas or persecution ; but it is impos-
sible to doubt that their attitu lc is, and must be, es-
sentially hostil. They embody and depend upon
diametrically different views of life, and china the
loyalty of mankind upon different and indeed incon-

sistent principles. The result of this must be a mute,
inarticulate opposition and rivalry which will end
either in subjugating the State to the Church, or in
breaking up and destroying the power of the clergy
over men's minds, and reducing all Churches to
the position of philosophical schools. It is the

greatest question of the day. The Pope's letters

summoning a General Council are an extreme illus-
tration of its most imposing aspect. Mr. Jones's

evidence in Fernando's case is a small and unim-

portant but a real illustration of the very same
principles under their least imposing a3pect. The
distance from an Ecumenical Council to a trial for
bigamy at the Derby assizes gives an odd sort of

measure of the enormous sweep of a problem which
occupies, on the one hand, the most powerful in-
tellects and affects the, policy of the most powerful

sovereigns in the world; and, on the other, involves

the momentous issue whether or not an Oriental
person in a rather equivocal position should retain

his right to the last woman who had taken a fancy
to his dusky charms or be the inmate of Derby
gaol for six months with a certain quantity of
exercise.—Pall Mall Gazette.

THE CHOLERA.—Gibraltar advices to the 16th
July state that the cholera is spreading a.t Mazagan, and
the deaths reach twenty daily. Europeans, as well as
the Moorish population, are among the victims. The dis-
ease was also spreading at Rabat, but declining at Casa-
blanco. The Board of Health has cut off communication
altogether with Barbary, Tangier, and the whale of the
Riff coast has been declared in quarantine, and vessels
with. foul bills of health are not permitted to enter the
harbour. •

EXCLUSIVE, VERY IMPORTANT, RARE, AND VALUABLE
are the properties of' Lamplough's Pyretic Saline, curing the
worst headaches, sickness, skin, or biliary affections Pleasant,
palatable, and liavigorAting. Scackby au Gheatiqs.—[AdYt.)