Morning journal and courier., 1893-09-23

residence or one OF the contracting par
ties; and within the past twenty three
years the present "Bishop of Grstna" has
married between nine hundred and one
thousand couples; chiefly runaway Eng
lish men and women, or nearly one-tenth
of the entire number number 30 married
at Gretna Green since its frst scandal
Gus" marriage of record. It is almost as
much resorted to at present for ''irregu-
lar" marriage ceremony as it was O hun
dred years ago, though the fine color and
great clsmor of the old coaching days,
when the old Carlisle and Glasgow road
resounded with ringing hoofs and the
shouts of pursued and pursuers are elimi-
mated by the railways; and every mail to
Gretna brings -0Bishop" Laing letters of
eager inquiry, one os which is truly cop
led, barring the signature in the following:
KEIaHLEY, England, Aug. es, 1885
DEAR SIR: Would you kindly inform me what
length Of residence is necessary In Scotland for
Does it require both bride and bridegroom to be
a certain length in Scotland, or only the bridef
Do you require any certificate as to the resi-
dence in Scotland? If SO from whom should II
bef From the minister, solicitor or-registarf
What time of day dc you require parties to be
found % and @ on a any day, Do you @ marry AZ y sunday
What is your feef The parties write for are
froS oRe TO s two p pounSs 4a s.y
ply will very much oblige.
P. ST We come you VIII know me by my
by a bit Of green in my hat-band. 1t Is possible
the bride may not have hardly anything on, as
ahe will have TO cut stick TO participate. How
will we kuow your
Gretns was originally chosen as an OBJ
jective point of safety for both Tying
debtors and runaway couples from Eng
land solely on account of Its favorable To-
cation. The great olden coach roads of
England, still its finest highways-the
eastern one coming north through Leeds,
York, Boroughbridge, Cstterick and an
oient Bowes, the scene of Dickens Dothe-
boys Hall in nicholas Nickleby," and
thence over dresry Stanemoor, and the
western one leading from Liverpool
through Lancashire and the northwestern
English shires-joined at the city of Car
Isle. From Carlisle the single broad
stone highway passed over the Esk and
Sark rivers, between which lay the histor-
ic "Dsbatable Land, ;" into Scotland. IL
should be borne In mind that the distance
from Carlisle to Gretna, just beyond the
Sark, is only about twelve miles; that
Gretna was the first oosch relay station
north of Carlisle; that the Ssrk stream
was the un9uestioned boundary line be-
tween England and Scotland; and that
whatever legal or moral vexstions might
In the olden times, or now, lurk In the
'Dsbatable Land" between the Esk and
the Ssrk, whenever debtors or lovers, hy-
ing from the inexorsble harsssmspt of
English statute, once crossed the middle of
the Sark, they were instantly sefs from
pursusrs banesth the evsr-welcoming egis
of Scottish law.
Though Gretna had besn a favorite ha-
ven of safety tor absconding debtors from
the middle of the seventeenth century, Its
hlst irregular" marriage of which there
is rscord did not occur until I'LL, seven
teen years subsequent to the passage of
Lord Chancellor Hardwioke's hated Eng
lish marriage act; but the circumstances
of this affair were so interesting and go
widely heralded that Gretns Green at once
became Hymen's metropolis for hunted,
haunted, runaway lovers. This fret mar
riage was of John Edgar, st. Msry's par
ish, and Jean Scott of the parish of Heth-
erel, both of the adjoining English county
of Cumberland. Tradition has 1t that
these two, instesd of coming by coach
and four over the post route from Carlisle,
escaped their opposing relatives by boat
across the Solway Firth. They were up
set by storm and q fierce incoming tide,
whose violence drowned one of their pur-
suers and caused the others to abandon
the chase. The couple themselves barely
escaped with their lives; and bedraggled
in brine and sand, they finally made their
i way on FOOT from the shoreside viiisgo vi
Brewhouses to Gretns, where they were
married by Joseph Paisley, who for this
sort of thing became the most notorious
man of his time in Scotland, as wsll as the
most eIecrated single individual known to
the annals of English social snathems.
At this time, Gretna, perhaps half
mile from the Sark along the highway to-
wards Glasgow, comprised not more than
half dozen houses. There were simply
few rude buildings clustered about an
old thatched kirk and the olden farmstead
of Meg'a-hill. The fsrmstesd was the
land of the lsird's residence. There were
also the little manse behind the kirk and q
vile little shop in which the fellow Paisley
NOT blacksmith, as all Gretns hters-
ture has it-sold tea, tobacco and snuH as
we'll as smuggled whiskey to the "muckle
right sort" The exploiting of the Edgar
Scott marriage; Paisley's defiance of Eng
| lish and Scotch authorities and hIs cum
ming In securing the highest Scottish legal
| advice, enabling him to settle the form of
procedure according to law by attesting
| marriages simply "a witness; with the
| consequent establishing of the absolute ls-
| gality of these marriages and the univer-
| sal notoriety thus given; completed the
| essentials for acqusinting every soul in
i England with the extraordinary opportu-
| nities offered for evsding English lay.
| Paisley became the self-constituted "Bish-
| op of Gretna;" and the Maxwell residence
| was transformed into q commodious inn.
| This hostelry proving inadequate for SC
| commoda.ion, Sir William Maxwell, ths
laird, built an entire village in the half
mile distance between Gretna aud the Ssrk,
/ which he called Springfield, and which in
Il cluded two inns, the Kings Arms and
/ Maxwell Arme; and theae by the begin
/ ming of the present century became the
most noted posting establishments in the
two kingdoms From Psisiey's marriage
of the Cumberland couple In l71l, to the
time of his death in 1914, 1t is computed
that this irregular" marriage traffic
brought annually TO Gretna and Spring
field twenty thousand pounds In fees; ex,
penses of those who pursued runaway
English couples; outlay of bsrristers who
visited the pisces to establish proof oi
marriage; other barrlsters who came fol
clients who hoped to fna lack of proof
from the curious who were attracted By
the extraordinary character of the place
and from the general recklessness and eX
travagsnce on every hand where marriage
fees from runaway English common folk
gentry aud nobility ranged from Eve t.
one hundred guineas, as they did, will
any amount of the yellow stuff" TO
1 l0r0eS or witnesses, uanul-men ant
satraps who lived permanently at the inn
filed the rude cottages or swarmed llk
harpies about the then busy stable-ysrds
The present hereditary line of Bishop
of Gretna" was ESTABLISHED just before th
death of Jossph Fsisley, who, q macs o
fat and corr upton, "wsnt his ways" Il
1914. He was a terrible drinker of cog
mao, and his advancing age with his physi
cal joys and Affections compelled him I
delegate his Office to other and younge
hands In the person of one David L-iDe
, an Ulster Irish psck-peddlsr. His wifi
was Paisley's granddaughter; and besides
: he possessed 30 hard a character and fist
: that none disputed the legitimacy Of th
, succession. He died in 1897. The thir
i "Bishop" was his son, Simon Lsing, VII
, fatted upon the increasing traffic unit
) 1856, when something of 8 check wa
/ given Gretna Green marriages by the pa
sage of the act before alluded to requirin
one of the contracting parties to hay
: Scottish residence for twenty one days In
a mediately preceding marriage. This 8
: mon Lsing died In 1871. The fourth an
= present "Bishop of Gretnsn Is Willial
j. Laing, her aajesty's postman at Sprinj
q field and Gretns, q little mite of an ol
: man seventy one years of sge, weszene,
:. shriveled and canny; uniting all the bib,
4 lous prowess of his predecessors with 9
n appalling cunning of the lowest order;
n tiny ogre in blue and red when on his of
!, cial rounds ss postmsn; Q vicious and r
d minatiye Grandfather SmalIwsed,n VIII,
d Officiating" or numbfng over his oak,
v chest of records In his tiny, tumble-dov
= eottape beside the impetuous Sark