LEAP YEAR.

Hokitika Guardian, 9 May 1924, Page 4

LEAP YEAR.

MARRIAGE ROOM IN AUCKLAND. AUCKLAND, May 7. Leap year, that delight of the penny comic paper and the last resort of the feminine lovelorn, is going ahead with a swing and the Auckland marriage market is booming. Scoffers may say what they like about leap year and may ridicule the idea that it is a trusty aid to those whose trembling hearts fear the ignominy of being “ left at the post,” but even, tbe most hardened scoffer must accept the evidence of figures, and the figures lor the first lour months of JO-t show conclusively that leap year is going to establish a record in local marriage statistics.

The number of marriages already performed this year, 717, is in excess of the totals for the first four months of the past three years and comes within ten of the record .achieved last leap year, 1020, when 727 marriages were registered. The 1020 statistics eomhined with those already available for 1021 are incontrovertible. Last year there were 2212 liijirriages and this figure has not been reached since. While the fact that thirty more marriages have already taken place in Auckland this year than in. the first four months of any other year since 1020 is an indication that leap year is once again going to prove Hymen’s ablest ally and young Cupid’s tnfsly friend.

As ever, the Faster season has been one of the busiest times of the year at the registrar’s office and this vent the officer in charge has been working overtime in bis attempts to cope with the rush of matrimonial business. The record number was predicted aL tbe beginning of tlie year and the prediction lias been amply verified. The number of marriage licenses issued during April was 221, an increase of fiftv-lwo over tbe figures lor

April of last year. No fewer than (in ceremonies were performed at the registrar’s cilice on the Thursday before Easter. Tlie official matchmaker issued several score of marriage licenses and personally performed no fewer than 10 marriage ceremonies, a record that even the most popular minister of the Church would find it very difiiuelt to

approach. One realises in Ihe lace ol facts such as these that the sternly enforced regulation “no conlctti allowed” is a most necessary one at the olliee of tlu* registrar. Each ceremony took, on an average, about ten min-

As the registrar remarked yesterday ii doesn’t take long once they’ve made up their minds to do it ; they do their thinking beforehand or afterward*. In many a ease, as the records ol divorco ami remarriage show, '‘afterwards” is right.

In the meantime the path of lilt? stretches ahead and lean year is passing. The modern maiden's prayer may well lie translated with apologies to the Rersimi tcntinaker into something appropriate and effective during tho remaining months of 192 R "The leap year bird has but a little while to lliltter. and hi! the bird is on the wing.”