The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-09-03
TUGBoAr MARRIAGES INVALID.

A Decision Affecting One of the Pecu-
 liar Institutions of California.
 A decision of the supreme court was rendered yesterday that will make many a home full of sadness and cast cloud upon the offspring of many a marriage that has not been solemnized by authorized persons. The court has decided that "tugboat" marriages are not valid, and that such contracts are not binding upon the parties
 On August ?, 1897, Homer Norman a man of twenty-one years, and Janette Thomson fifteen years and ten months old, boarded a fishing schooner and put out to sea, where, after they had gone full nine miles from shore, the captain performed the ceremony of marriage The consent of the guardian of the girl had not been secured. Immediately after the ceremony Norman and his young wife returned to Los Angeles and for eight days lived happily. The girl then left her husband, and, upon her assertion that she would not con slider the marriage binding, suit was marriage valid.
 The question was fought with much stubbornness before Judge Allen of Los Angeles, and a decision was rendered declaring the marriage invalid. An ap- pei was taken by the husband, and the supreme court in affirming the judg- ment of the lower court, declared inval- i'd all marriages except those solemniz- ed by persons authorized by the code to perform the ceremonies.
 The supreme court says that it was admitted by the parties to the suit that they had gone without the jurisdiction and the laws of California in order that they could be married, and with the in- tention of returning immediately and assuming the marriage relation. This of itself, says the court would not have invalidated the marriage had there been a law governing that particular form of ceremony. It continues:
 "The law of the sea, as 1t may relate to the marriage of citizens of the Unit ed States domciled in California, can- not be referred to as the common law of England any more than 1t can be to the law of France or Spain or any other foreign country. We can find no law of congress and none has been pointed out by appellant in which the general government has undertaken or assum- ed to legislate generally upon the sub ject of marriage on the sea. Nor, in- deed can we find in the grant of pow CTS to the general government by the several states, as expressed in the na- tional constitution, any provision by which congress is empowered to declare what shall constitute a valid marriage between citizens of the several states upon the sea, either within or without the conventional three-mile limit of any shore of any state; and clearly does no such power rent in congress to reg ulate marriages on land except in the District of Columbia and the territories of the United States, or where it pos sesses the power of exclusive jurisdic- tion.
 The parties did not 20 to any other state or country to be married They went upon the high seas where no written law of which we have any knowledge existed by which marriage could be solemnized. The rule, there fore, that the law of the place must govern does not operate, because there was no law of the place, unless we may hold that the law of domicile ap- plies.
 "We find no case holding that par ties domiciled in a state may, for the avowed purpose of evading it's laws, go where no law exists and there consum- mate marriage in violation of the laws of their domicile and immediately re- turn and claim a valid marriage. In all the cases where the statutes have been thus circumvented 1t was accom- plished by a marriage valid in the place where celebrated.
 Tn the case before us the parties not only went where there was no law au- thorizing the marriage, but they went with the intention of immediately re- turning to their domicile, where they supposed the law would not admit of their marriage, to enjoy the fruits of their contract,
 "There is, we conceive, no ground of expediency sound policy or good mor- als upon which the transaction can be given legal sanction. Unless it appears that this marriage was consummated under some recognized law the courts of this state should not declare it val id."-San Francisco Examiner.