opposition has been communicated at the "central" office to the intended marriage, should be sent back to the clergyman, minister, or Registrar who communicated it. When any notice shall have "forbidden" written against it, whether in the "central" or "branch" office, all proceedings depending upon it should at once become null and void. The fact of its being recorded against the notice at one office should be immediately transmitted to the other.

On the following day after the receipt of this certificate from the "central" office at the " branch" office, the parties may apply for it, and be married then and there in such "branch" office, at any convenient hour of the day, with open doors, and in the presence of at least two witnesses, besides the officiating minister or officer. A duplicate copy of the certificate of marriage should be given to the parties and the other retained by the officiating clergyman, minister, or Registrar, and filed; and a quarterly return of such certificates should be made by them to the RegistrarGeneral.

The parties when about to be married must produce to the officiating clergyman, &c., the certificate countersigned by the clergyman, &c., to whom application was first made for it, that the notice has been filed the proper period, without any objection appearing on it; and this certificate should only be valid for three months from the date of its grant.

At some part of the civil ceremony, the parties must declare in the presence of the proper persons, "I do solemnly declare that I know not of any lawful impediment why I, A. B., may not be joined in matrimony to C. D. ;" and shall say to each other, "I call upon these persons here present to witness that I, A. B., do take thee, C. D., to be my lawful wedded wife [or husband]." Those who wish now. to add the religious ceremony can repair to their church or meeting-house, and be there married according to the forms of their communion or society; but before the religious ceremony is performed the parties must produce their cer

tificate from the clergyman, &c., that they have been civilly married. The clergy of the Established Church, or the ministers of other denominations, shall not be bound to keep an official record of such marriages.

Under this system there need not be any such publicity as would offend the most sensitive, and considerably less than under the publication of banns, for which there would no longer be any reason, or under the Registrar's certificate. The presence of the marriage Registrar at the different marriage ceremonies would now be dispensed with. There would be no need for the suspension of the application for the certificate either in the "central" or "branch" office. An inquiry and search by the interested parties, who would know where to look, in the books of either of the offices, would be sufficient to inform them as to what they wished to know, and enable them, if they thought proper, to prevent the intended marriage.

In cases of urgent need it should be permitted to the heads of the clergy, and the chiefs of the different denominational bodies, and the Superintendent Registrar of districts to dispense, for good cause shown, with some of the preliminaries in cases where they might advantageously be omitted. As clergymen are now, so they in the future, and all those who minister in holy things, may safely be trusted to perform this duty of a witness to marriage in strict integrity and uprightness: nay, their bias, if any, would be to strictness in seeing that fraud and secrecy were defeated. If they felt disposed to forget their duty, the sense of responsibility, and liability to a heavy fine, would deter them from carrying out such intentions.

We have now laid before the reader some of the material facts which in the space allotted to us we are enabled to marshall in support of the contention that our marriage laws should be codified, and in the place of the numberless methods of contracting valid marriages, one uniform legal method should be adopted, which, owing to circumstances,

must be civil. We have pointed out how discrepant are the laws of the three kingdoms; to what risks and dangers this want of uniformity may tend; how well founded is the cry for a simple and general law of marriage for these islands; and we have been venturesome enough to propose a plan for carrying our ideas and aims into practical working. To simplify conflicting laws, differences must be reconciled, toned down and harmonized; and the good in each system preserved and made part of the new entirety. Our scheme, we venture to suggest, in some part meets these requirements. While demanding a compulsory civil ceremony, it yet leaves unfettered the power and influence of those in sacred offices over this holy and revered bond; while embracing all the more salutary provisions of the English system, it borrows suggestions from the Irish; and adopts from the Scotch all those wholesome and stringent regulations touching the consent of interested parties to the intended marriage, and the residence of the couple contemplating matrimony, which prevent hasty, secret, and improvident nuptials. If it be found impossible so to assimilate at once these conflicting laws, let us not shrink from attempting the experiment upon ourselves in England; and if found successful, gradually to extend to the sister kingdoms the advantages which they may ultimately be willing to adopt. This probably will be the future of any such measure as we have here advocated. In conclusion, we will quote the words of Lord Selborne* on the difficulty of procuring a ready acceptance of large and important measures of reform: "It is a misfortune of the times in which we live, that any large or comprehensive legislation on those subjects which touch most closely the highest interests of all classes of men, seem to be impossible unless some popular or political excitement can be got up about them."

W. P. EVERSLEY.

* Debate on the Marriage Preliminaries Bill, 1878. Hansard, Vol. 142. p. 1248.

IV. ON THE JURISDICTION OF THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE IN DIVORCE.

THE

HE case of Niboyet v. Niboyet, reported in the February number of this year's Law Reports (4 P.D. 1), has introduced so much confusion and uncertainty into the existing law with respect to the Divorce Jurisdiction of the High Court of Justice, that an examination of the authorities and principles relied on in the argument and in the conflicting judgments may be of advantage.

The question involved is, speaking generally, this: Can a divorce be properly pronounced by any Court which is not the Court of the matrimonial domicil, i.e., the domicil of the husband?* More particularly: Can the English Court properly pronounce a divorce when the domicil of the husband is not English? This question may again be varied by asking: Has the English Court jurisdiction to pronounce such a divorce? The meaning intended to be conveyed by the two expressions is in fact the same. Amplifying it, it is this: Do the rules of private international law, so far as they are adopted, followed, or recognised by English Courts, authorize the English Court to pronounce a divorce in such a case? This is the question which Niboyet v. Niboyet purports to answer, and it answers it in the following way. Sir R. Phillimore and Brett, L.J., say that such an assumption of jurisdiction is unauthorised; that by the law of nations and the law of England, domicil and domicil alone is the essential circumstance which gives any Court jurisdiction to dissolve the matrimonial bond; and that inasmuch as M. Niboyet's domicil is confessedly French, by the admission of the parties and as a matter of

* The cases where a wife may, after desertion by her husband, retain or even acquire a domicil distinct from his for such purposes (see Le Sueur v. Le Sueur, L.R. 1. P.D. 139) are omitted from the consideration of the present subject. They are not pertinent to that branch of it which is discussed here.

law (or rather, as a legal presumption of a fact), the English Court cannot, at the instance of the wife, interfere with his marriage tie. On the other hand, James & Cotton, LL.JJ., are of opinion that the domicil of the husband is not the true test; that the Divorce Act (20 & 21 Vict., c. 85) was intended to give the Court which it constituted power to deal with all matrimonial matters in England, and that upon the true construction of that Act the divorce of a Frenchman "resident" in England, but retaining his French domicil, is such a matrimonial matter. Sir R. Phillimore's opinion having been pronounced in the Court below, and not in the Court of Appeal, the judgment of Brett, L.J., has been over-ruled by the voices of James & Cotton, LL.JJ. It is almost unnecessary, however, to say that on a subject to which Sir R. Phillimore has devoted especial attention, the opinion of one of the most eminent living English experts in international law is entitled to at least as much respect as that of any other judge; and it is quite plain that some day a decision will have to be pronounced in the face of what is, so far as Niboyet v. Niboyet is concerned, an equally balanced conflict of authority.

It may be convenient to mention here, very briefly, the few material facts of the particular case. The husband was French by nationality and domicil of origin, and married the petitioner, an Englishwoman by birth and domicil, at Gibraltar, in 1856. From 1862 to 1869, the husband filled the post of French Vice-Consul at Sunderland, and, from 1875 till the institution of the suit, the post of French Consul at Newcastle. The alleged adultery was committed in England. The husband had admittedly never acquired an English domicil, but he and his wife (so far as these expressions are legally consistent) were resident in England, except so far as residence implies or includes domicil. The admission by the petitioner that the domicil of the husband had remained French was probably based on the rule of international law that a consul does not, by