Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1897-06-26
LICENSES TO MARRY
Obstacles in the Way Of Love-Sick
SWANS.
THlS CITY Is QUITE 4 GREYNA GREEN
Curious Dramas That Are Enacted
in the Clerks Office.
THE TIM WORN JOKE

Clerk Meigs Of the District Supreme
Court Office has been engaged in the amia-
bic business of licensing folks to marry for
one year longer than the period usually
accounted generation. His round clerkly
handwriting began to appear on marriage
licenses in the summer of 1863, and he
mas been sending forth radiant youths
and maidens from his office into a
smiling world ever since The flushed
young folks who, in what seems the far
time when Mr.. Meigs first took I'D the
potential pen Of marriage license clerk.
passed beneath the Intel Of his Office door
tightly clutching their solemn, quaint doc
uments Of old English legal verbiage to
mold them safe, and peering wistfully INFO
the future, are now, those of them who
Still tread the world, elderly, time-mellowed
men and women, whose pleasures and So
lace consist more largely in retrospection
than in anticipation.
During the past few years." says Clerk
Meigs. Il have issued hundreds of licenses
TO marry to the sons and daughters of the
young people who came to me on the same
mission as far back as when the result of
the war was still in doubt, and it certainly
makes me feel as If I were getting along
In years bit when these strapping young
fellows. many Of them looking just like
their fathers with whom l used to play
SKINNY and base ball. and these pretty
young women, duplicates of their just-as-
pretty mothers (as l remember 'em), come
siding up to this desk for their permits
to get married; 1t surely makes me feel like
L amt quite so young as used to be-
The average number of marriage licenses
issued year when MIR. Meigs began fill
ing out the blanks. thirty-four years ago,
was about 1900. For the past half de-
cade the average number has been some
thing more than 1000.
A Time-worn Joke.
"Old photographers have often told me-"
said Clerk Meigs to a Star reporter the
other day, that at length, after the lapse
OF sufficient number of years, they find
they can no longer extract amusement
from the prodgiously funny remarks their
sitters invariably feel called upon to make
In facing the camera: I guess I'll break
your lens,' or I'd rather have a tooth
pulled than have my picture TAKEN for
instance. Well, these photographer friends
of mine have my profound sympathy. Sew
eral times day for the past thirty-four
years l have been compelled to assume a
CHASTITY, mirthless smile when humorous
young men have walked up to this desk
for their marriage licenses with the re-
mark, I want to get hung. That's the
invariable, eternal phrase-1 want to get
hung Nine-tenths of the young fellows
who exude the remark fairly beam with
their own originality, and some of them
look quite aggrieved when do not slap my
thigh and plunge into hysterical merri-
ment over the joke; for how can they know
that this joke was superannuated and de-
crepit long years before they knew the
effulgence of the SUM-
Odd experiences here? Oh, yes. thou
sands of them. This office has always
1cSS m
tragedy, and patlfos. Washington has al
ways been a good deal of Gretna Green,
and 1 have had moderately good chance
to observe the complications Into which
clipping young people plunge themselves
We get most of our clippers here from Fir-
ginia, the Maryland clippers make for Bal
timore to get themselves married Times
without number | have been in the very
act of filling ont marriage licenses for
young folks who have eloDed from the
surrounding country when one or both
Of the girls parents. generally the father
alone, turned I'D in this Office In vorious
stages of sanguinary hostility. In nine
cases out of ten Of tnis sort. however, the
old gentleman has been unable to prevent
the issuance of .ha license. If young
man and woman are old enough to get
married. and there is on their sworn state
ments no other obstacle in the way of
their marriage, they are going to get their
marriage license in this Office If all the
young wOmnn's people down to her forty
second male cousins are lined up here with
budgeons and blunderhusses. There is no
way to stop 1t without one Of the girls
men folks kills her beau right on the spot:
and this don't happen, for general
thing, when the girls Directing folks see
that the thing is bound to go through with
out hitch they cave as the saying runs,
ard make the best of it. as they ought
to do in the first place.
A Question of Age.
"It has frequently happened that irate
fathers have doomed up in here In the wake
of clipping couples just as l was about to
issue the licenses. and, In order to stop
the thing, they have solemnly declared to
me that their daughters were under eight
teen years of age. only to be routed, horse,
foot and artillery. by the would-be bride
groom's producing a sworn statement. duly
sealed and witnessed, having been procured
before the elopeMent was undertaken, prov
ing the girl to be of the legal age to mar
ry: which goes to show that the young man
OF this era who elopes to get married to the
girl he wants has got whole lot of wis
dom and craftiness in his day and genera
ton.
During the past ten years the marriages
OF dozens of clipping couples have been per
formed here in the city hall right under the
eyes of fathers and brothers who have
stormed in here athirst for the bridegroom's
blood-for we send out and get minister
to tie the knots when the young people ask
us to do so. l very often receive letters.
especially around the holiday season, from
men and women who eloped from adjoin-
ing states and got marriage licenses from
me yearc ago. telling me Of the peace and
happiness that has followed their matri-
monial ventures: and for my part 1 can't
see why an elopement marriage shouldn't
turn out just as prosperous and happy as
4 high noon affair in a church. with weep
ing mothers, soft organ music, rice, old
shoes, and sll the rest Of It,
The modification of the District mar
riage laws last year has mad some odd re-
suits. For instance, one Of the require
ments Of that law is that minister's in or
der to perform legal marriage ceremony,
must obtain from the Supreme Court a GER
tificate empowering them to tie matrimo-
NAL knots. Now, there still remains in the
District of Columbia considerable num-
Der Of ministers who have not heard of
this provision of the marriage law, and
who, not having procured their certificates.
are no more entitled to perform a mar
riGge ceremony that will stand in law
than the driver Of a street sweeper Some
OF these ministers are still officiating at
marriages. however. and thereby compel
ling numbers Of young folks hereabouts
to go through the marriage ceremony