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a letter as if to a wife, was held sufficient to establish a marriage: and hence those rapid flights to Gretna, which puzzle foreigners; Gretna, not being of itself a city sacred to Hymen, hut the nearest village across the boundary of England, that could be reached by enamoured couples. The parties were made "one" by David Paisley, a blacksmith by trade. He kept no regular registry. John Linton, the landlord of Gretna Hall, succeeded David . Paisley. He kept no exact registry, but remembered the elopement of Lord Erskine (afterwards Lord Chancellor), who arrived, disguised as an old woman, with a veil and grey cloak: that of Lord Westmoreland with the daughter and heiress of Mr Childe, the banker; that of Lord Eldoh (another Chancellor); of one of the Laws, brother of Lord Chief Justice Ellenborough; and of a clergyman, the Rev. Thomas Cator; besides a host of less remarkable, and equally remarkable, cases. These Gretna marriages held good; but the ceremony was, nevertheless, generally repeated according to more regular forms, as soon as opportunity permitted. They took place in great numbers, and it is only very recently that legislation has been appealed to on the subject of their prohibition. The law, the church, and the nobility, thus owe to David Paisley the blacksmith, and John Linton the innkeeper, many of the marriages of their most illustrious and distinguished families. Assuredly, marriage is not a sacrament In Scotland! Indeed, so many strange confusions have taken place in consequence of the laxity of the law In that country, that it was humorously asserted in the House of Lords, during an appeal on a Scotch case, that no Scotch gentleman could feel positively sure whether he were married or a bachelor, the knot was so easily tied.
In Scotland, the property, personalty, and rights of the wife, are far more strictly protected than In England: and In divorce cases, she has the advantage over the English wife. In the fact, that the first step Is to Inquire Into the truth of the allegations against her. The English wife, In an action for
