"SURPRISE" MARRIAGE.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIV, Issue 9166, 9 June 1908, Page 6

"SURPRISE " MARRIAGE.

WEDDING AT A THEATRICAL PERFORMANCE.

Readers of Mrs Croker's novels will remember that in one of her stories she makes a gallant young soldier take part in amateur theatricals at a house in Scotland, at the conclusion of which he finds he is by Scottish law really married to the little hoyden with whom he has gone through a mock marriage ceremony. The London Express tells of a case where a young couple whose parents forbade tneir marriage had recourse to the same expedient. The story comes from Castelmore, Dalmatia, whore a young couple were wedded in the presence of|their friends and relatives, although the latter objected strenuously to the match. The bridegroom was Anton Iron, a young and penniless lawyer, and his sweetheart, an eighteen-year-old girl named Estelle Berger, the daughter of a local merchant. As her parents refused to sanction the match, and the girl refused to take part in a ; clandestine lovers wgre in despair until Herr Iron thought of an ingenious way out of the difficulty. Both he and bis sweetheart were enthusiastic members of an amateur dramatic club. He arranged a theatrical performance, in which both of them took part, and which included a two-act comedy. In the last act of the comedy the hero and heroine were married on the stage in full view of the audience. The theatre was crowded, the proceeds of the entertainment being devoted to charity. Fraulein Berger’s parents were astounded, when they waited for their daughter after the performance, to be-informed that ~ she had been really married, and that' the actor who impersonated a clergyman was really a minister. The bride’s father was so delighted at the'clever way u in which he had been oat wilted that he gave the couple a £SO note for their honeymoon, and promised to furnish a home lor them.