MOCK MARRIAGES.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume VIII, Issue 2198, 19 January 1886, Page 2

MOCK MARRIAGES.

When the comio,opera "RMS. Pin»- a fore" was at the height of its in the United States, it was the fashion T •' to give representations of it with the assistance of church choirs in the churches i The latest of Gilbert and Sullivaii's operu, I' The Mikado," appears to have become just as popular, and to have been repeil* edly represented in the same maimer in America, with the result that acurioa* religious discussion lias arisen with regard to it. A Buffalo correspondent of the "Hew York Tribune" writesThar* ' has been some stir in the religious po?« tion of this community over the celebration of mock Japenese weddings in Km*' aide, Westminster,; and other churcW j The crazo began shortly after " The" r Mikado" hadbeen performed- here, and " the results gave the ministers somo uneasiness, The last church ceremony was at tho Riverside. Methodist churoh, the principal performers being Joseph 0. Adams, a book-keeper, and Miss May Scott, a school-teacher, tho handsomest couple in Black Rock. They do not con-, • • sider themselves married. It would be em- \ / barrassing if the marriage should prov# to | be genuine, inasmuch as it is whispered ' that both.parties havo other attachments. A leading minister said; to-day, ' I have not seen the " Mikado," but if what I have been told is correct, Dr Smith has been indiscreet in allowing a representation of the opera in* hia church. Tho name Yum-Yum is vulgar and slangy, and even a comical wedding; between- such a . character and the Lord.High Executioner is distasteful to religious people. lam told that the coremony there is evon mol# binding and formal than at Eiverside. II is shocking, it -is demoralising, and in common with other Presbyterians I pro* test against suoh practices." Tho Rev. Patrick Cronin, editor of the " Catholio Union," who is closely in sympathy with Bishop Ryan, has written a letter in ,> which he says "Mock' marriages are W dangerous games to play. The essence of ~ marriage is the consent of the contracting parties, and when this consent ia clearly manifested, usually by words, there ii no longer any mock about it. The consenting parties are wedded."