as in the days of the Penal Code, the marriages of Roman Catholics in Ireland may be celebrated at the option of the parties, at any hour, without notice, without a witness, by any words, and without a single record to attest them; although it is due to the priesthood to say that they do, for the most part, observe these requisites. At the same time, the old restrictions are still in force upon this body; they may marry their own co-religionists as they please; but if they attempt to solemnize a union where one or both of the parties is Protestant or has been so within twelve months, the whole proceeding becomes a nullity. Within a boundary which eludes observation the contract is most dangerously loose; without it, however solemn it may have been, it is legally a mere nonentity.

This, then, is the law of marriage in Ireland, excepting only that mere marriage contracts have been done away with as a bar to invalidate regularly solemnized unions. We need not say that, viewed as a whole, that law is at issue with all sound principle. As regards Roman Catholic marriages—that is, those of three-fourths of the nation -they may be as hasty and as clandestine as Scotch marriages at Gretna Green; and no public register attests them. Deliberation, therefore, and publicity may be entirely wanting in these unions, defects which of course are an evil in themselves, and very perilous to other marriages. The conditions of marriage are thus obscured; while as regards Presbyterian marriages and those of other sects of Protestants, they are very harsh, and difficult of discovery. How is a person, not a Presbyterian, who marries in a Presbyterian chapel, to ascertain the Presbyterianism of the co-contractor? and why should a Baptist and Wesleyan be compelled to marry by a notice at the poor-house? And lastly, every marriage in Ireland is exposed to a series of latent impediments which very possibly may elude inquiry. Any marriage celebrated in her Established Church may be set aside by a secret ceremony performed before a Roman Catholic priest if both the parties can be proved to have been Catholic. Any marriage celebrated in her Roman Catholic Church is avoided if one of the parties can show that at the time, or within twelve months, he or she was a professing Protestant. And any marriage in her Presbyterian Church may very possibly depend on the fact that one or both of the parties at the time was or were Presbyterian Protestants. I think I may say that a code such as this-which divides itself into obscure privilegia according to sectarian distinctions,-which gives a latitude to one class of marriages which are a serious evil in themselves, and places a fetter on other marriages from which they certainly should be free,-which is so lax that it encourages seduction, and so intricate that it endangers matrimony-and which sets in hazard the greatest of contracts by reason of undiscoverable connexions, of facts really collateral and immaterial, and of unintelligible and treacherous provisoes,―requires, if possible, a thorough amendment.

Having thus endeavoured to trace the outline of the law of marriage in the three kingdoms, and to show the inherent faults of

this law as it now exists in Scotland and Ireland, I proceed, thirdly, to notice the effects of this conflict of law within the empire. A volume might be written on this topic; so I confine myself to two particulars, which appear to me especially mischievous. It is surely a great national evil, that what legally constitutes a marriage should be different in various parts of the empire; that between three nations locally intermingled, and connected by a thousand links of union, the law of marriage should be a "Lesbian rule," which shifts according to the circumstances of place; and that acts which in England would be absolutely null may be binding marriages in Scotland and Ireland. This medley of jarring rights reminds me of the observation of the Athenian orator, "that a faulty law, if fixed and uniform, may be better than a wise one which is partial in its working ;' and I need not here dilate on its mischiefs. Again, it is a result of this conflict which divides Great Britain into three regions in which marriage is differently defined, that even within these regions severally the law of marriage is not uniform. For, since with this as with other contracts, the lex loci governs marriage so far as regards all external forms; and since English, Scotch, and Irish marriages are therefore valid in all parts of the empire, it follows that, in each division of it, the status of persons and title to property may be affected by a law of marriage to which its own is completely repugnant. A marriage in Ireland celebrated by a friar, without notice or a single form, may transfer the honours of the house of Howard; and we all know, since the 26 Geo. II., and even since 6 Will. IV., that English titles and estates have devolved upon the issue of Gretna Green marriages-that is, of unions condemned by English law, but operative within the English jurisdiction. The result is, that the law, as a whole, is not only split into discordant systems, but that each of these systems encroaches on the other, and makes the entire a scene of uncertainty : “Id vos sub legis vinculo conjicitis, qua dirimitis societatem civilem diversas ex una civitates facietis, pactionemque nuptialem, ad incertum revocatis."

I come now to consider, lastly, the reforms applicable to our general law of marriage. And here I must remark that it is not within my province to estimate the many disturbing obstructions in the way of legislation on this subject; that is the business of the practical politician, whose task as regards it is obviously a delicate one. I cannot doubt that irregular Scotch marriages should be abolished in the general interests, since they are not only injurious to Scotland, but spread their evils throughout the empire. As regards Ireland, for the same reasons I should advocate that its marriage law should be assimilated to that of England, the outlines of which I have traced already, with this difference, that as, in fact, our Established Church is not national, so it should not have here, as it has in England, the privilege of marrying all couples whatever, without the intervention of a State functionary. I would try and establish in Ireland the principle that marriage, in its temporal relations, is

nothing more than a civil contract, which the State must fence round 'with certain precautions; but that, in its spiritual and domestic bearings, it should be clothed with any sanctions which the creed of the parties chooses to invest it with. For this purpose I would have the registrar attend at every marriage in Ireland, without regard to any religious distinction, but with the savings existing in England. I would have the contract effected by him in parish churches, or registered places of worship, or, finally, at his own office, in the same way, and with the same observances as are at present in force in England; and I would take care that the evidence of the tie should be as in England, fully registered. A measure of this kind would make our marriage law conform at last to sound principle; it would put an end to the many mischiefs which beset it at present, and vex society; and I have reason to hope that it would be welcomed by the educated majority of the Irish laity.

In conclusion, I have only to observe that this is not a local or provincial question, to be viewed with deference to class prejudices; it is emphatically an imperial subject, to be dealt with in the interest of the Commonwealth. I cannot recognise the right of Scotland to inflict a marriage law on the empire which may spread its mischiefs to its furthest bounds, and affect every family within it. Still less can I admit the right of the clergy of any denominations whatever in Ireland to perpetuate a system, the faults of which I have endeavoured to set before you. The reason of the thing, the examples of history, and even the authority of the best of the Canonists, assert the paramount right of the State to define what shall be the contract of marriage, and with what civil ceremonies it shall be attended, while they leave to the Church to declare its effects in their purely sacred and spiritual character. I claim this liberty and no more for the power of the Legislature in these kingdoms; and it is to be hoped that it will be able, in the interest of the society it protects, to lay down rules for this great contract-origo et seminarium reipublica-which shall set it free from the many mischiefs with which it is at present surrounded.

On the Changes in the Marriage Laws required, so as to insure a complete Registration of Marriages in Ireland. By MARK S. O'SHAUGHNESSY, Barrister-at-Law.

THE expediency of establishing in Ireland a complete system of registration of births, deaths, and marriages, has long been admitted; and Bills for that purpose have been submitted to Parliament by successive Governments. The plans proposed by Lord Naas and Mr. Whiteside, when in office in 1859, and that put forward in 1860 by Mr. Cardwell and the present Mr. Baron Deasy, as AttorneyGeneral, were, during the last Session, referred to a Select Committee, and the result was, that a proposal for the registration of marriages only was reported to the House. That proposal, however, the

Secretary for Ireland declined to adopt, and the question has been advanced no farther than it was by the Act of 1844, (7 & 8 Vict. c. 81, amended by 9 & 10 Vict. c. 72.) That Act was intended for the Presbyterian body. They had (as Sir James Graham, then Home Secretary, informed the House; Hansard, vol. lxxvi. p. 1654,) been consulted with regard to it, and it had been delayed for that purpose. It was proposed by Lord Naas that that Act should be extended, and a penalty of £5 was to be imposed on any person who should refuse or, without reasonable cause, omit to register any marriage lawfully solemnized by him (s. 39.) It did not seem to have been intended to disturb any persons holding office as registrars' under the Presbyterian Act. As these persons could themselves celebrate marriages, the office was confined to Protestants, as any Roman Catholic layman assuming the function of celebrating a marriage would thereby incur ecclesiastical censures. This circumstance could not fail to have prevented the measure, if enacted, from being acceptable to the vast majority of the population; and without the willing co-operation of the clergy and people generally, the measure must have failed to effect a complete registration. Whilst for the rest of his plan Lord Naas contemplated using the police force, Mr. Cardwell, following the precedent of the English Acts in force since the close of the last reign, (6 & 7 Will. IV. c. 85,) proposed to use the machinery of the poor law, the officers of which are all elected by local boards. With regard to Roman Catholic marriages it was proposed that every Roman Catholic clergyman, immediately after every office of matrimony lawfully solemnized by him, should register the particulars of the marriage, and £5 penalty was imposed on every person refusing or, without reasonable cause, omitting to register any marriage solemnized by him, or which he ought to register. The judgment of the Court of Queen's Bench in Ireland decided (in the case of the Queen v. Taggart, reported 9 Irish Law Reports, p. 395) that, under the operation of the 7 & 8 Vict. c. 81, s. 45, a Roman Catholic clergyman became liable to transportation for celebrating a marriage between a Roman Catholic and a person who had been, or professed to have been, a Protestant, at any time within twelve months before such celebration' of marriage. Such marriages, as is now well known, are by the Act of 1746 (19 Geo. II. c. 13) declared to be absolutely null and void. Here, then, was a class of cases more numerous than would readily be conceived, which the proposed legislation failed to meet. Possessed, by means of the practice and discipline of his Church, of peculiar sources of information, and impelled by his sacerdotal duty to risk all consequences in life to withdraw his penitent from a state of sin, or to avert the danger of it, the Roman Catholic priest has no choice but to celebrate that marriage, which, valid in the eye of the Church, is null and void according to law, and he does not shrink from incurring the penalty which the law has set upon his so doing.

To any observation that marriages secret and legally informal are

likely to be, and generally, in fact, are, productive of distressing and frequently disastrous consequences, it can only be answered that they are the result of the pressure of conscientious duty, as opposed to that of penal legislation, and will therefore be persevered in as often as the necessity of circumstances seems to call for them; and that the wiser course for legislation to take is to meet such cases as will, from the existing state of society, inevitably be of frequent occurrence. These marriages, not lawfully solemnized, the Roman Catholic clergyman cannot be expected to register; to do so, would, of course, be useless except for the purpose of exposing himself to prosecution.

The late Lord Chancellor, Lord Campbell, took this subject in hand, and on the 30th May of the present year presented to the House of Lords a Bill to amend the law relating to marriages between Protestants and Roman Catholics in Ireland. Now, in legislating for this country, it must not be lost sight of, that the legislation is for five or nearly six millions of people, (5,764,543,) of whom the Christian population is made up of 1,273,638 Protestants of all denominations, and 4,490,583 Roman Catholics. (With Jews, 322; total, 5,764,543.) If, then, the legislation is to be effective, the habits, the sentiments, the prejudices even, of those who form the majority of the population, in the proportion of nearly four to one, must be kept in view; and enactments ought not to be made which would be incompatible with the discipline and practices of the Church of the majority. It was the proposal of Lord Chancellor Campbell that the solemnization of a marriage between a Roman Catholic and a person who was not a Roman Catholic was no longer to subject a Roman Catholic priest to any punishment, pain, or penalty whatsoever; but certain conditions should attend the celebration of the marriage. Lord Campbell also proposed a partial repeal of the 19 Geo. II., that is to say, so much as provided that a marriage solemnized by a Popish priest between a Papist and any person who hath been, or proposed to be, a Protestant at any time within twelve months before such celebration, should be void, the validity of the marriage being dependent on the performance of those conditions which were to exempt the celebrant priest from incurring penalties for the celebration of the marriage. It is to be presumed that, whatever was the policy which led to the enactment of 1746, or whatever were the reasons of State which suggested the discouragement of such marriages, no political causes now exist which should lead the State to discountenance them, or place obstacles in their way. Now, Lord Campbell's Bill made necessary to their validity, and to the immunity of the celebrant priest, that the same notice required by the Presbyterian Act to be given to the registrar in case of a marriage according to the rites of the Established Church, (marriage by licence, or special licence, or after publications of banns excepted,) should be given, and his certificate be issued; that this certificate should be delivered to the celebrant priest; that after the notice, twenty-one days should have elapsed before the marriage, and that