EARL ST. GERMANS,in presenting a Bill to legalise marriage with a deceased wife's sister, said, that he had in a former Session brought in a Bill on this subject which their Lordships had rejected on a second reading by a large majority. He should be wanting in respect to their Lordships if he were again to lay that Bill upon the table, and he had therefore thought it desirable, that in the Bill which he held in his hand an alteration should be made in one important particular. In the Bill now before the House he did not propose to trench on, or interfere with, the canon law. He, therefore, did not propose to permit clergymen or even dissenting ministers to solemnise these marriages. The object of the Bill was, to permit such marriages to be made before the registrar.
§ The Bill was then read a first time.