Glasgow Courier. — 1860-03-20 (Glasgow, Strathclyde, Scotland)

COURT OF SESSION-FIRST DIVISIONMARCH H.  Mrs CATHIRINX MITOMILL or LEstrE,. Perth_ Rod,  Dundee, v. JAMES MILNE LESLIE and OTHERS,  This was a declarator of marriage under circumstances which are peculiar. It is one raised after the death of the alleged husband, the Rev. Cathcart Leslie, late minister of the parish of Borthwick, near Edinburgh. It appeared that the parties became acquainted with each other in early life. In 1822 an attachment arose between them, and they entered into an engagemont of marriage in December of that year. Mr Leslie was then about 22. He was the son of a respectable farmer in Fyfe, and the pursuer was the daughter of a respectable farmer in Forfarshire. Mr Leslie was a student of Divinity, and the fact of the engagement of the parties was communicated by both of them to the pursuer's father in 1823, and was approved of by him. It was recommended that the marriage should be deferred till Mr Leslie became a minister. Ile became assistant to a minister in 1827, and in that year the two formally ac.. cepted of each other as husband and wife, but it was agreed to keep the marriage secret till he was placed in a church. There was no evidence of his alleged verbal contract, except in the change of the terms of their correspondence, wherein Mr Leslie invariably subscribed himself as the pursuer's husband, and the pursuer used the name and subscription of Catherine Leslie and this they continued to do for thirty years, letters being interchanged between them at least weekly. Mr Leslie occasionally made remittances to the pursuer, although these were limited in consequence of his circumstances being very embarrassed. The letters were peculiarly affectionate and intimate. It was not till July, 1846, that Mr Leslie was presented to the church and parish of Borthwick, when the pursuer earnestly entreated him to acknowledge her as his wife, and take her home to the manse as his wife. This he professed himself unable to do in consequence of his pecuniary circumstances, his income being quite inadequate, after providing, in some measure for the claims upon him, for the proper maintenance of a wife. Ultimately, in May, 1856, the pressure of his debts, many of which were not very creditably incurred, and which amounted to between £7,000 and £B,OOO, led him to a resolution to flee the country, and he committed suicide in ,Lancaster, it was understood, while on his way to America or Australia. The Lord Ordinary (Ardmillan) decided that no marriage had been proved, notwithstanding the acknowledgments in the correspondence. That correspondence. althougli instructing an ardent and constant mutual attachment, and a solemn engagement with a view to marriage, did not, in his opinion, amount to a proof of actual marriage in 1827 or 1828, or at any other time. The pursuer reclaimed against this judgment, and the Court to-day, on advising the cane, unanimously recalled the iuterlocutor of the Lord Ordinary, holding that the marriage had been proved, and therefore finding and declaring in terms of the conclusions of her summons. The Lori Pteeklent 414 not concur with the majority ,