MR. PHILIPPS (Lanark, Mid)asked the Lord Advocate, If it be true that the clerk of the Kirk Session of Hamilton demanded and took a fee of 10s. for publishing the banns of John Gilmour and Helen Hoggan on May 27; if, in making that demand, he was acting in accordance with law; and, if the Kirk Session has been in the habit of authorizing him to charge that fee whenever the banns are published on a single Sabbath, and is justified in so doing?
§ THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. H. A. MACDONALD) (Edinburgh and St. Andrew's Universities)The statement in the first Question is correct. The clerk was not acting in accordance with the Act of the General Assembly relating to this matter, which says that in no case should the fee for proclamation exceed 2s. 6d. It appears that the Kirk Session of Hamilton, and some other Kirk Sessions also, have construed the Rule to apply only to cases of proclamation on three successive Sundays, and exacted the extra fee where the proclamations were, by request, made all on one day. Attention was called to the matter before the Question was put upon the Paper, and the clerk returned the sum of 7s. 6d. to Gilmour.