The Marriage and Registration Acts are as intelligible as most
of the Statutes at Large to the unlearned leader,—that is to say, be will find considerable difficulty in ascertaining the real meaning and effect even of the plainest clauses. But few Acts of Parliament so much require to be generally understood ; and it is therefore desirable that they should be freed from legal jargon and simplified for "the meanest capacity." This has been attempted for the Marriage Act, in a little book published by WESTLEY and DAVIS; the author, a Barrister. To us, however, it seems that the "simplified and explained" Act is scarcely more simple or intelligible than the original one; and there has been small effort at compression, or the pruning of superfluous phrases. Another little book, published by LONGMAN, deals with the 'Registration as well as the Marriage Act ; and is really what the public require—a manual of practical directions for anybodywishing to register a birth or to get married. The author is Mr. SYDNEY ASPLAND, of the Middle "emple. Time price of the Simplified Marriage Act is eighteenpence, of the Treatise on the Marriage and Registration Acts two shillings.
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