SOME MARRIAGE STORIES.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2508, 27 May 1893, Page 3

SOME MARRIAGE STORIES.

A working parson, whose experiences have been gathered in Large town parishes, tells in The Cornhill some amusing stories, chiefly relating to the wedding ceremony. Once it was his lot to he embarrassed by the appeals of two yrnmg women who wanted to many the same bridegroom. The first-comer of these had scarcely told how her faithless lover had actually put up the banns in the east end parish when the delinquent turned up with an idiotic grin on his face and a gaily-apparelled young woman on his arm. What could the parson—then a young and bashful curate—do but to invite the trio into the vestry room, there to discuss the business? Luckily for him, it speedily leaked out that there had been no legal residence in his parish, which afforded him at once a sufficient ground for declining to perform the ceremony. On another occasion the awful discovery was made that the bride had by accident been described in the marriage notice by her pet name. It was suggested that an affidavit of identity sworn at a neighboring police court might repair the blunder. This was done just in time to complete the ceremony within canonical hours, but the accommodating clergyman afterwards received a stern admonishment from high quarters “ not to do it again.” Another case was that of an elderly widower, who was so dull and stupid that it was very difficult to marry him. When told to give his right hand, he gave his left; when the minister said “ Say this after me,” ho immediatelj 7 remarked “ Say this after me.” But when the words he was to repeat were given, he was stolidly silent, “At last,” says the marrator, “he saw that I was somewhat bothered by his extreme stupidity, so in the middle of the service he upset ray gravity bj 7 volunteering the following apology : “ You see, sir, it is so long since I was married afore that you must excuse my forgetting of these things.” One more example. It appears that it occasinally happens that a couple who have been content to be married at a registry office are some time afterwards seized with a desire to be married again, as the law allows, in church. The “ working parson ” having one day got such a couple on the steps of the altar, he was rather nonplussed by the answer he got to the question t: John, wilt thou have this woman to be {thy wedded wife?” “ Why, sir,” replied the bridegroom, “ I told you we were married two years ago.”—London News.