SCOTS LAW AND ENGLISH
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] SIR,—It is true, as Mr. Arthur Pollok Sym writes, that it is possible to contract an irregular marriage in Scotland else- where than at Gretna : I recall that my wife and I did so in his own city of Edinburgh. But I submit that he errs in thinking that I 3tlr "quite mistaken" in my view that the Gretna Green marriage business is a special problem. If support for that view were needed, it may serve to say that Lord Morison's Committee, appointed to inquire into the law of Scotland relating to the constitution of marriage, which reported two years ago, dealt at length with marriages by declaration de presenti, and the four pages of the Report dealing with that type of irregular marriage are almost exclusively devoted to Gretna and the spurious business carried on there.
Lord Brougham's Act of 1854, which required a qualifica- tion of residence in Scotland, ended the English " runaway matches " of earlier times, but the circumstances and inci- dents of these marriages inspired a false romanticism and a desire for publicity in certain foolish people—most of them, be it noted in passing, from other parts of Scotland—which enabled an enterprising Gretna tradesman to make for him- self a very comfortable livelihood.
These circumstances have, I consider, made the Gretna problem a special and notorious one, and I do not in the least share Mr. Sym's apprehensions that if it were scotched the result would only be that the scandal would break out anew somewhere else.
In any case, the remedy proposed in the Bill at present before Parliament goes further, in my opinion, than the needs ot the case require: it would deprive Scots citizens of the privilege of a simple marriage in their own homes without fuss or formality or the interposition of the Church.—Your
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