marriage. He had felt one difficulty on this subject-namely, with reference to the vested interests that might exist. But here he had come to the conclusion that the General Assembly had cut the ground from their own feet, for in most important cases they had proposed to cut down fees to a third or a fourth of those at present levied. He therefore cordially supported the Bill.

where the banns had been published;
whereas in Scotland, on the other hand,
although the publication of banns must,
by the recent decision of the House of
Lords, take place either in a parish or in
a quoad sacra church, still a marriage
might be celebrated after publication of
the banns in any place and by any
minister. Again, in England and Ire-
land, where licences were cheap, banns
were frequently dispensed with: but in
Scotland, although, he believed, it was
quite true that the presbyters inherited
the ancient powers of the Bishops to
grant licences, they had never to this
day exercised these powers.
It was
true, therefore, as the hon. Member for
Glasgow (Dr. Cameron) said, that in
every regular marriage in Scotland banns
were required. There was a very learned
legal authority in Scotland, Baron Hume,
who said—

"Our practice holds none for right or inoffensive but that which is celebrated by a priest duly ordained by the Church and after publication of banns."

In Scotland there were marriages which were not regular, though not in a greater proportion than 20 in every 20,000. These were celebrated by people other than ministers of the Church and Dissenting ministers. The hon. Member for Edinburgh (Mr. M'Laren) had placed

COLONEL ALEXANDER said, he did not wish to give an absolutely silent vote upon a question of this importance. He did not regret that the division was to be taken on the Motion for the rejection of the Bill, rather than on the issue which the Amendment of the hon. and gallant Member for Aberdeenshire (Sir Alexander Gordon) would have raised. He did not see that they could have expected any useful results from the appointment of a Committee. The Royal Commission which sat as lately as 1866, and of which Lord Chelmsford was the Chairman, elicited everything which the Committee of the hon. and gallant Gentleman could hope to elicit. If any gentleman would study the evidence taken by that Commission and their Report, he would have but little difficulty in arriving at the conclusion that sooner or later it would be desirable to repeal the law requiring the proclamation of banns in order to make a marriage law-it on record, he believed, that on two ful. He really thought that the law had little else beyond its antiquity to recommend it. He would readily concede the point of antiquity, for he found that in the Western Church the practice of proclaiming banns was universal from an early period, and canons were promulgated enjoining the thrice repeated banns both by King Edward II., and again by Edward III. In 1200 they found Archbishop Walter ordaining that no marriage should be contracted without banns thrice published in the church, nor between persons unknown. About the same time the Bishop of Paris issued a similar order, and in 1215 Pope Innocent III. made the law apply to the whole Church. But while banns were common to the United Kingdom there was a considerable difference in the circumstances affecting their publication in the two countries of England and Scotland. In England banns might be published in Dissenting as well as in parish churches, although no doubt the marriage must be celebrated in the place Sir Edward Colebrooke

occasions he joined couples together in holy matrimony. That occurred when he was Lord Provost of Edinburgh, and when he had some scruples about performing the same kind office for a third couple, a brother magistrate volunteered his services. "I feel greatly relieved," said the hon. Member for Edinburgh; "by all means you shall marry them,' and they were married accordingly. The hon. Gentleman had given interesting details of these marriages which he celebrated. He said the young lady came to him nicely dressed, as if she were going to be married in a church, and the couple went away after the ceremony apparently very happy; and he said "I believe that to be as legal a marriage as any that ever was celebrated." [Mr. M'LAREN assented.] The main object of proclamation of banns was to secure publicity; but the evidence given before the Royal Commission went entirely to prove that publicity was not attained. The remarks of the Royal Commission on this head referred

“As we have been informed, some who have been living in concubinage, and who otherwise might have been disposed to marry, have abstained from doing so in consequence of the notoriety attending the publication of the banns."

And the Commissioners added—

"It seems universally agreed that no really valuable publicity is attained by the banns. They afford no safeguard against improvidence, illegality, and fraud, and they are often productive of greatly inconvenient and unseemly interruption to Divine service."

to England as well as Scotland; but | the past, and he hoped would do good they said that publication created great work again; but he thought they had a disquietude to people who were appre- good right to ask what had been the hensive of temporary annoyance. The reason of their delay in this matter? A Report was suggestive on this head. It document had been issued by that body saidto Members of this House, which he could only characterize as one of the most extraordinary that ever emanated from so distinguished an assembly. This document was entitled "The Banns of Marriage (Scotland) Bill Statement against.' He ventured to think that nothing more deplorable, nothing more disingenuous, than that statement was it possible to conceive. There was a great deal in it about the great desirability of celebrating marriages in facie ecclesiæ, and about the right of the Assembly alone to regulate the publication of banns of marriage, or otherwise amend regulations which they had entirely neglected to amend. The document went on to say that the General Assembly had already proposed to amend regulations. That word" already" would lead any inattentive observer to think that they met this question long ago; whereas they never took any action in the matter until it was suggested to them by the Bill introduced by the hon. Gentleman opposite (Dr. Cameron). The Royal Commission sat 10 years ago, and notwithstanding that it was proved by not only Dissenters, but the most eminent men of the Church of Scotland, that the present lax practice was productive not only of hardship and of discontent, but also of positive immorality, it was only now that the General Assembly roused itself from its lethargy, and proposed the abolition of the triple proclamation, and to limit the fee to 28. 68.which, if they had the power to do-and that he very much doubted-they ought to have done long ago. Of the many questions discussed by the General Assembly, he ventured to say that none could be more important to the country than this. Doubtless the General Assembly was very much occupied ; but as long as it neglected this and other great kindred questions affecting the welfare of the whole people, their best motto would be Strenua nos exercet inertia. Why, then, should he not vote for the Bill of the hon. Gentleman? Simply, because there should be a locus penitentiæ, even to such an august body as this

That last remark, of course, applied more to England than Scotland. In England the banns were at any rate duly proclaimed by the minister from the reading desk, and hence were done decently and in order, and on three successive Sundays; but in Scotland, notwithstanding what was said by the hon. Member for Dumbarton (Mr. Orr Ewing), the banns, as a general rule, were proclaimed by the precentor, in the absence of the minister, and before the congregation assembled for Divine worship, and he maintained, in opposition to the hon. Member, that oftener than not a triple proclamation was made on one Sunday. The pay was much or little in different parishes, according to the will of the session clerk. The hon. Member for Edinburgh (Mr. M'Laren) said on this point

"It had come to this-the session clerk in one parish may say, 'My fee is 10s.;' another will say in another parish, 'My fee is 15s. ;' and a third in a third parish will say, 'My fee is a pound; ""_

And then his hon. Friend went on to tell the Royal Commission that the people did not dispute the charges, for they could not help themselves. In return for these exorbitant fees, the session clerk did nothing or next to nothing. In the evidence before the Commission it was recommended that a fee of 28. 6d. should be the general and legitimate charge, and this sum the General Assembly now rather tardily had proposed in substitution for the present exorbitant fees. He had the greatest respect for that venerable body, which had certainly done good work in

DR. CAMERON said, that the Bill did not propose that.

with what was said on both sides of the | the system of irregular connections that House, that the hon. Member for Glasgow was so common elsewhere. Therefore (Dr. Cameron) had done good service by he would be extremely sorry to see any bringing this question forward; and he law passed that would interfere with the also agreed with a good deal of what he facility of marriage, whether with or said as to the reform required, especially without any religious ceremony. on the question of fees, which he considered were perfectly disgraceful. If the Church of Scotland had been rightly put in the position it occupied,, as he thought it had, of proclaiming marriages within its walls, it ought to have the fees merely nominal, or so small as only to cover the expense. In that direction reform was needed; and he was not opposed to the idea of extending the permission to proclaim marriages to the other Churches of Scotland. But he saw some risk of marriages so proclaimed being hole-and-corner affairs, and it might be necessary to post up a notice on some conspicuous place, or to advertise in the papers, or some other way. His idea would be to reject this Bill, with the hope of getting some more useful and more palatable measure in the future.

MR. ANDERSON said, that although he intended to vote for the Bill, he had much less to say in its favour than some hon. Members who intended to vote against it-such as the hon. and gallant Member for Ayrshire (Colonel Alexander,) whose speech, he maintained, was in favour of the Bill. There was a grievance, and in his opinion the exclusive right of proclaiming marriages in the Established Church ought to be done away with. When he said that, he had said all that could be said in favour of the Bill. At the same time, he did not believe the present system gave the publicity it required. As far as he had read the Bill, it appeared to him that to ask the registrar to hear all the objections laid before him, and to come to a decision as to whether he should postpone the marriage to an indefinite time or not, was highly objectionable. That would be placing the registrar in an entirely false position. All that should be required of the registrar was to keep an accurate register of the marriages which took place. It ought not to be his duty to state whether they ought to take place or not. He admitted there was some evil in the extreme facility for marriage in Scotland, but in his opinion the good greatly preponderated, and undoubtedly that facility acted as a great check on

MR. FORSYTH said, that though he was an English Member, he was born in Scotland and his relatives were Scotch, so that he might perhaps be entitled to say a word on the question. He was astonished that the Bill contained no provision for altering what was a crying scandal in the Scotch marriage law. At present, if a man and woman in Scotland, perhaps half tipsy, said before a witness, "This is my wife," "This is my husband," it was a lawful marriage. Thus the most important questions of legitimacy and of property depended upon hasty statements made in that way. There was a well-known story of the eldest son of a Scotch Peer who, having quarrelled with his father, went into a house of bad repute in Edinburgh and acknowledged a woman there as his wife. This was held to be a good marriage, and he was tied to the woman for life. Such a state of the law ought to be amended in any measure dealing with the marriage law of Scotland. As to the Bill itself, he thought it went too far, for it took away from the Established Church of Scotland the right of publishing banns in the case of those who were members of that church, and who would have no objection to such publication, but he sug gested that Dissenting ministers might be enabled to publish banns in their own chapels.

MR. NOEL remarked that he had not heard a word on the other side of the House of any objection to this Bill which could not be removed in Committee. Under the present law, he would venture to say, publicity was not obtained. In the Established Church, in nine cases out of ten, the banns were proclaimed before the greater part of the congregation were assembled, and when great noise was going on the announcements were never heard except in a few isolated cases, when the clergyman was in the pulpit. Therefore, under the present law they did not get publicity. There could be no argument against this Bill as giving sufficient publicity.