From a petition presented a few days ago to the
House of Lords, it appears that a couple, whose relationship was within the prohibited degrees, were recently married at St. Saviour's Southwark, after having in vain endeavoured to obtain a licence from die Registrar of their owa country district, although they had only lived in St. Saviour's parish for two days, and did not conceal their real names. In reference to this case, the Morning Chronicle makes the following remarks for the edification of Dr. Blomfield- " Our readers cannot have forgotten the noise made by the Bishop of Lon- don in the case of the marriage, in the Union of Oundle, of a young widow and, an illegitimate son of the son of her former husband, in consequence of an error on time part of the Superintendent Registrar, who mistook the ac- knowledgment of the receipt of his letter, communicating the facts of the ease to time Registrar-General, for aim authority- to proceed whim the marriage. But in this Oundle case, the clergyman of the parish had refused to solemnize the marriage, which supplied the Bight Reverend Prelate with an opportunity imot to be neglected of crying down the new Marriage Act. The Bishop him- self admitted that the error in the (Muffle case was very venial: but what will he say to this marriage, solemnized by a clergyman of the Church of England, after the refusal of a certificate at Witham, where the parties had resided up to within two days of' the ceremony? how would his Lordship relish a general charge against. the clergy of the Establishment, because one clergyman had solemnized this illegal Marriage? "
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