egistrar shall be
entitled to a fee of ten shillings, or it shall be competent to the
persons so contracting marriage to _require the registrar of the
subdistrict within which such marriage has been contracted to attend at
the contraction_, or within two months thereafter, at any place within
such subdistrict; and such registrar is hereby required, upon a written
notice of forty-eight hours given to him to that effect, to attend with
the register-book accordingly, and to make the proper entry therein, and
for such attendance and entry, if at the contraction or within ten days
of the contraction of such marriage, the registrar shall be entitled to
a fee of one guinea, besides the sum of sixpence for each mile which
such registrar shall be obliged to travel in going from his place of
abode to the place of such marriage; and if such attendance shall be
required after ten days but within two months of the contraction of such
marriage, the registrar shall for such attendance and entry be entitled
to a fee of two guineas, besides the sum of sixpence for each mile which
such registrar shall be obliged to travel as aforesaid; and any person
contracting marriage and failing to register the same, and sign the
entry thereof in manner herein prescribed during the period of two
months thereafter, shall be liable in a penalty of fifty pounds, and in
default of payment thereof to suffer imprisonment for one month."

We cannot help thinking that the Registration Bill, from which we have
just quoted, has been framed without any view to the purpose which its
machinery is to serve under the Marriage Bill, of not merely registering
a marriage otherwise constituted, but also of actually constituting the
marriage that is to be registered. There is a gap apparently left
between the two Bills, and at least there is something that appears very
blank and meagre in the provision made for extra-ecclesiastical
marriages to be contracted in the registrar's presence. We presume that
this officer is not to judge what ceremony or declaration shall
constitute a marriage; if he were to do so new difficulties would arise:
but we take it for granted that if asked by the contracting parties to
register them as married persons, the registrar must immediately obey,
when the entry will of itself marry them, whether they were married or
not before.

There is certainly something startling in a system of registration which
does not precisely settle the anteceden