MARRIAGE IN AMERICA.

Manawatu Standard, Volume IV, Issue 92, 13 March 1884, Page 2

MARRIAGE IN AMERICA.

I * In the happy state of Pennsylvania no marriage license is Squired, a fact announced on. the .phonal .and business .cards issued by a certain \Squir* MaYep who holds for Pennsylvania-* cotniriission as Justice of the Peace— w,hich en« ables' him' to perform legal uiarriages uand has rather taken advantage of it. Tip to the middle of last December Squire Mayes a 'gemial,breezy,old man' has secure.l the eternal and unchecked happiness ; of 2,304 couples— that is to say-he baa maVned thai number m the hope that eternal ■ and unchecked happiness would naturally follow. When the squire bej?an to marry m 1862, the fee was two dollars per couple; but ■& generoas Legislator c i*: 18bo increased the rate to theft* 4oUa«s, Squire Maye?, however was not particular toafraction. He has permitted a Pennsyl. vanian Romeo and Jnliet to purchaes bass at the low Bgute of 90 cents, while niß biographer records thac ' One groom was so happy that he left with the knot fastener a %>rfol bill.' Souiecimss business ' has been brisk— Lord Tennyson has recorded th* effect of spring on a young • man s fancy— and sometimes Cupid seems to aim badly and Hymen's torch to bo so far as Pennsylvania ia-jconcerried; extinguished. On one occasion four couples were about .to be married -at the same time when the bell rang and two more were mhered m. Squire Mayes has enabled no fewer thun fifty gentlemen named Smith to join fifty fadies named Smith to the archives of the Smith family On the 17th o£ June, 1880, he saw a joung ladiy through whose mother he had seen through on the 18jth-^f June 1862^ 7. M^ wwl^^^P*^*"*Mpi^^^ d