MR. HAY MORGAN (Cornwall, Truro)I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been called to the case of Amos Patchett, who was on the 7th June, 1907, committed by the magistrates of Nottingham City to take his trial at the assizes for making a declaration, before the registrar of marriages that he believed there was no impediment of kindred or alliance, or other lawful hindrance, to his marriage with a certain 693 person who was in fact a sister of his deceased wife; and whether, in view of the fact that the demand for this declaration has been the means of bringing disgrace upon a respectable but unlettered man, and also in view of the fact that such a declaration is not demanded from persons who are married in a chinch or chapel, he will take steps to secure the discontinuance of the practice of demanding such a declaration as a preliminary to marriage at a registrar's office.
§ MR. GLADSTONEI had not heard of the case until my attention was called to it by my hon. friend's Question. While the trial is pending, it is manifestly undesirable that I should discuss the circumstances of the case; but I must not be understood as in any way assenting to my hon. friend's suggestion that the law should be altered.