65; banns-marriage, 633; marriage by civil certificate, 17. For the decrease here exhibited, to which only the last item offers an exception, the reader has been prepared; but the figures are also modified in respect of each other. Not only therefore have the Church's foreign relations, so to speak, in reference to matrimony undergone change during the 42 years under consideration, but her domestic concerns in that respect have altered also. This is otherwise set forth in a further table, which is convenient for quotation here, one in which the proportional figures have reference, not to marriages of all descriptions, but to church-marriages only. It will be noticed that fuller fractions than those used before appear in this table. This is to reach the minute operations of special-licence-marriage, which are therein distinguished. The distinction, however, will not be brought into these pages, for the special licence process, an expensive one supposed to be resorted to only by those of high degree, has never been employed but to an insignificantly small extent. In neither of the forty-two years has the number of special licences granted exceeded 75, while in several of them it has fallen as low as 8. It is shown in this last-mentioned tabular statement that in the five years, 1841-5, marriages by special licence and common ecclesiastical licence together were in the proportion of 15:43, and those by banns of 83-28 to the hundred of church-weddings of all descriptions; that the proportion of licence-marriages increased and that of bannsmarriages decreased in each succeeding quinquennium up to 185660 inclusive, the figures for which period were respectively, 16:02 and 80-88; but that every subsequent quinquennium has seen a diminution in the proportion of marriages by licence, and an increase in that of marriages by banns, the figures for 1876-80 having been 11'19 and 8634; while the single year 1882 gave to licence-weddings a proportion of only 9°17, but to banns-weddings one of 88*42 per cent. of ecclesiastical espousals altogether. It is evident, therefore, that amongst those couples which, in spite of facilities in other directions, have chosen to go on using church forms of matrimony, there has been, since 1860, some change of view as to the particular church form to be used. To what is this change attributable? It will be remembered by many that at the time with which the Tables referred to begin, espousal by the common ecclesiastical licence (the bishop's or surrogate's licence) was the "genteel" method of marriage, and that it continued to be so for many years afterwards. To be "asked" in church was not then considered to be the thing, except for servant girls, artisans, and ploughmen. But with the development of High-Church princi

Registrar-General's Forty-fifth Annual Report. Table B.

ples the upper and middle classes came gradually to prefer banns; and it is probably these classes, under the influence mentioned, that turned the tide in favour of this more orthodox marriage-method some quarter of a century ago, with the subsequent results noted.

The history of the civil certificate as a means of obtaining church nuptials is not a brilliant one. It appears from the table last referred to that in every five-years period from 1841-5 to 1861-5 inclusive, the employment of the certificate in church slightly increased relatively to the use of church marriage-modes altogether, the proportion of this method to all ecclesiastical methods then reaching 3:12 per cent.; but that afterwards a decline set in which brought the figures down to 2'47 in 1876-80, while the single year 1882 produced of this class of weddings a proportion of only 2'41 per cent. of all ecclesiastically solemnised. In its relation to all descriptions of espousal the method of church-marriage by certificate attracted with tolerable steadiness a slightly increasing proportion of couples from 1841 to 1856 inclusive. But in the following year it began to receive less usage relatively to all marriage provisions; and with some pauses and one or two recoveries this declining tendency has proceeded ever since. The clergy never generally approved the lay certificate as introductory to church marriage-rites; and by a statute which came into operation on the 1st January, 1857,' they acquired what amounts to a right of veto on its issue for church use, for under that Act no marriage by virtue of the certificate can be solemnised in a church of the Church of England without the consent of the clergyman. It is evident that this right has been exercised. Nevertheless, in some places the nuptial method in question has met with direct clerical approval as a means of securing church-marriage in some form for those shrinking from the publicity of banns-for notice to the civil officer involves in many districts far less notoriety than do three "askings" in church.

So much, then, for the older marriage-methods, with their ambiguous appendage last referred to; now for the newer. It will be well in the first place to say something separately of the weddings of Roman Catholics. The modes available for this body from a legal point of view are shared by many and diverse religious communities. But the strict adherence given by the Roman Catholic to the matrimonial requirements of his church places his marriage procedure on an exceptional footing. He uses the civil certificate, or in a few cases the civil licence, as his legal wedding warrant; but then the banns must be published, or the episcopal dispensation obtained

1 19 & 20 Vict. c. 119, sec. 11.

also. Under no circumstances would these be overlooked. His amenability to religious authority keeps him too, for the most part, from wandering into foreign matrimonial methods even should he wish to do so; and while, as has been seen, the members of most other religious bodies often rove for marriage purposes into alien territory, he almost always stays at home, and marries as his priest directs. This gives to the figures concerning Roman Catholic espousals a special interest. It implies that those figures, when viewed in their relation to the general marriage figures of the country, convey an idea-not indeed to be too literally interpreted, but still of much value, and one that is probably answering to the reality more nearly every year-as to the proportion borne by the Roman Catholic body to the community at large. In the first five years with which the before quoted tables deal, viz., 1841-5, Roman Catholic weddings were not enumerated separately from those of Protestant Dissenters. The year 1846 shall therefore be the starting point from which to note the figures. In that year Roman Catholic marriages were in the proportion of 21 to the 100 performed in England and Wales by all methods; in 1851 the proportion was 4'3 to 100; in 1856, 4'7; in 1861, 48; in 1866, 47; in 1871, 40; in 1876, 42; and in each of the years 1881 and 1882, 4'5. Some readers may like to follow the actual numbers in the years referred to, which present themselves thus: in 1846, 3,027 out of 145,664 marriages were those of Roman Catholics; in 1851, 6,570 out of 154,206; in 1856, 7,527 out of 159,337; in 1861, 7,782 out of 163,706; in 1866, 8,911 out of 187,776; in 1871, 7,647 out of 190,112; in 1876, 8,577 out of 201,874; in 1881, 8,784 cut of 197,290; and in 1882, 9,235 out of 204,405. It will be observed that while Roman Catholic marriages were more numerous than ever in 1882, they had been in higher proportion to marriages in general in three previous years of those mentioned, viz., in 1856, 1861, and 1866. The highest proportion ever reached was in 1853, when these weddings were 5'1 to the 100, or 8,375 out of 164,520.

Marriage in the registered chapels of Protestant dissenters does not differ as to the legal processes involved from that in the buildings of Roman Catholics; but its celebration there does not always imply the employment of any religious service, and indeed there is no legal necessity for any at a marriage in a Roman Catholic chapel, though usage invariably supplies it in the latter case. In 1846-to begin again at the point from which a commencement was made in the last instance--the marriages under consideration, with which are included those of Jews and Quakers (always few in number), were in pro.

portion to all marriages performed of 5'4 per cent. The corresponding figures for 1851 were 64; those for 1856 were 6'3; and those for 1861 reached 82-a large increase, to be accounted for presently. The year 1866 gave 9'4'; 1871 gave 10'2; 1876, 11°2; and 1881 and 1882 each 114-an addition of 60 per cent. to the figures of 1846, when 7,961 couples out of 145,664 had been married under the conditions in question; while in 1882 the number of these weddings was 23,351 out of a total of 204,405. Lord Russell's Act beforementioned had provided that notices of marriage given to a civil officer should be read aloud before boards of guardians. This provision had been exceedingly unpopular. And no wonder. What Damon would care that his intended union to Amaryllis should be discussed together with workhouse dietaries, lunatic removals, and pauper coffins? But the statute already referred to, which began to work in 1857, repealed the offensive requirement; and notice-publication has since been effected otherwise. It was this change, no doubt, that gave so strongly-marked an impulse to the class of marriages. now under consideration, between 1856 and 1861. It operated similarly upon register-office weddings, but not at all upon Roman Catholic espousals-a proof that the Roman Catholic, in matrimonial affairs, fixes his chief attention upon ecclesiastical rather than civil requirements, and does not greatly care what the latter may be so that they allow him free scope for compliance with the former. Among Dissenters the licence-method of chapel-marriage is now what the Surrogate's licence-method was among Churchmen forty years ago the genteel way of being wed. It is largely resorted to by the wealthier classes of nonconformity; while the humbler ranks find in the civil certificate an authority for chapel-marriage better suited to their shorter purses, or sometimes, in quest of further cheapness, invoke that authority for purely secular espousal.

Finally, something must be told as to marriage performed in register-offices. The process to be considered is, as the reader will remember, wholly civil both as to introductory forms and actual celebration. It was clearly the intention of Lord Russell's Act that such should be the case; and in the statute which came into force in 1857 the use of any religious ceremony at register-office marriages was expressly forbidden. The documentary marriage-instruments here are the before-named civil licence and certificate. In 1841 the proportion of this variety of marriage-process to all descriptions was as 17 to 100-2,064 weddings out of 122,496 taking place in the offices during that year. Five years later some advance appears, the figures for 1846 standing

rim de imbens being 4157 cut of 145,664. In 1851 the proportion was 4 4 per tent-6 813 to 154.206; and in 1856 it was $1 per cent-out to reset. In the course of the next five years me sus of be range as to notice-publication already spoken of 2 207 Šoved tremseres; and in 1861 the proportion of purely semut Tammigas to mamages was 72 to 100, the numbers for 16 In 1856, 81 per cent., or 15,246 200 a bit wet.s were performed in register offices; in 1871, per cent, or =538 out of 10.112; in 1876, 108 per cent., or in 1881, 125 per cent, or 25,055 out of

1982 the same proportion as in the previous year,

The amount of inmuse in the proportion of register-office marform-two years having been from 17 in 1841 to 117 a 1881, in te to the too of all marriages performed, and the tral decrease in the proportion of church marriages in the same time hiring amounted to ata per cent, it follows that nearly half of the percentage lost to the Church has been appropriated by the prey and process of matrimony: rather more than half-¿c., 110 out of the ata per rent having been absorbed by the modes of eroasil used in Roman Catholic chapels and Protestant Dissenting Cages together-the Jewish and Quaker methods, affecting but very soll ambers being also included here.

The entirely secular marriage-modes seem to be gaining on the part ally religious metho's where the celebration takes place in chapels In 1878 the two classes of espousal were resorted to in the same propertion, the figures relating to each then standing alike at 116 per cent. of all marriages accomplished. In the following year purely civil marriage ran ahead of chapel marriage, and stood to it in the relation of 120 to 116 per cent. of espousals altogether; and in each of the years 1881 and 1882 the proportions were registeroffice marriage, 126 per cent, chapel-marriage, 114 per cent. If the present conditions continue to exist, the figures representing these two classes of matrimonial methods are likely to go apart much further in the directions here indicated. In the first place, marriage in the register-office is a cheaper article than that in a chapel. As has already been stated, this fact alone now often induces dissenters of the poorer class to leave their places of worship for marriage purposes, and celebrate their nuptials before the civil officer. It would seem too, that the ministers of dissenting congregations do not desire in all cases to check the existing, and probably increasing tendency among their flocks to regard marriage as a purely civil con