§ SIR MORTON PETOsaid, he would beg to ask Her Majesty's Government Whether they had heard of the re-marriage of a Mr. and Mrs. Hulin by the Rev. Horatio Walmesley, Vicar of St. Briavels Gloucestershire, after they had been previously married in a Dissenting Chapel, and on which re-marriage the Vicar entered the parties in his register book as bachelor and spinster, knowing of the previous marriage; and whether Her Majesty's Government will prosecute the Vicar for making such entries under the Statute 76 George IV., s. 29?
MR. BRUCE, in reply, said, he did not think that the conduct of the Vicar in question could properly be made the subject of a prosecution for penalties under the Statute. The first marriage was either a valid on or it was not. If it was a valid marriage, all that was done afterwards was simply super- 1466 fluous and null, and could not be made the subject of a prosecution. If the marriage was invalid, then everything which subsequently happened was regularly done. No offence had been committed against the Law, though there might have been an offence against good taste and good feeling.