The Marrying Business In Scotland.

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 367, 23 February 1937, Page 2

The Marrying Business In Scotland.

There have been many inquiries into the marrying business in Scatland. At one of these inquiries it was shovs'n that of 31,244 marriages in 1928 no lewer than 3,7122 wero “irregular.” in that year 2215 marriages took place at Gretna, and only 18 of the number were duly registered as legally binding contracts. Lately a report has been received from another committee of inquiry, and it recommends the abolition of such irregular marriages on the ground that “ a law which permits a marriage to take place without an intimation of the ceremony and procedure is indefensible.” The report of the latest committee of inquiry instances many tragedies. 1 arising from Gretna Green marriages; but the philosophical Richard Rennison, who now' performs marriages, remarks that “there will still be unhappiness.,” even if the romantic anvil is abolished! Not Ail Runaways. Not all of the persons who go to Gretna Green to be married are run aways. It is true that a goodly proportion of them are romantic young | things, whose parents have refused | them permission to marry, for one i reason or another, but not all of them [ come under that heading. It wais- at , Gretna, on the Scottish border, for t

| instance, that John Beckett, MJP., married the widow of the actor- | manager, Arthur Bourchier, a few I years ago. That was a pure mar- | riage of convenience, for Beckett was* electioneering in Glasgow, and it was but a step to the anvil-altar. It was but a little while after that event that Charlie Peachey, son of the novelist, and Mary Elizabeth, I daughter of Admiral Wemyss, made their secret mo-tor drive to the Green and clasped hands over the anvil. Charlie Was a minor, and his literary father—the man who wrote “Cuddle’ums” and: “The Right to Love”!—had succeeded in blocking his application for a marriage license in London,