LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEYasked the Government, Whether any Notice has been taken of the conduct attributed to the Registrar of Mount Street, who would appear from the Report of the proceedings in the Divorce Court in respect of Mr. Sebright's marriage, to have been blind to the compulsion used by Mr. Sebright and his friend? It was not necessary to go into details, since compulsion was the ground on which the marriage had been annulled, and this had been confirmed by the decree having been made absolute about six weeks or 1518 two months ago. He thought the Registrars required to he cautioned to prevent their offices being abused in a similar way.
LORD BALFOUR. (for the Local Government Board)said, he was rather surprised that the noble Lord should have thought it worth while to raise such a question as the one under notice after this lapse of time. The Local Government Board had no direct control over the Registrars, who were subject to the Registrar General. But he (Lord Balfour) had received a communication from the Registrar, in which ha stated that he had no ground for suspicion in the matter, for he had seen an announcement that the parties were shortly to be married before he received the notices, and that he had observed nothing unusual in Miss Scott's demeanour until after the ceremony had been completed, when she forgot to sign the register. It was also true that after the marriage ceremony was completed, Miss Scott drew the ring from her finger—not at the time it was put on, as she stated to the Court—and then went to the door. The duties of the Registrar were simply to administer the law. He had to take care that the parties were of full age, and that the legal requirements had been complied with, and there his duty ended. The Registrar General had not thought it necessary to take any notice of the matter, and in that, he thought, the Registrar General was quite right. Being anxious to give as satisfactory an explanation as possible, he had read all the documents which had been brought before him in regard to this matter, and, as far as his humble judgment wont, he thought that the decision of the Registrar was right.
§ LORD BRAMWELLsaid, the noble Lord's speech had convinced him that the case was an example of the great inconvenience of an inquiry of this description. They know now that a grievous compulsion was used. They knew it, because they were told not only what took place in the Registrar's office, but also what occurred days and weeks previously and subsequently. Yet this gentleman wan, as it were, by implication to be censured because he did not, with the materials before him come to the same conclusion as the Probate Judge, who formed his judgment on quite different materials.