t the same time, that, as he must be a mortal man, and is to be paid by
fees, he will have no objection to encourage every thing that brings
grist to the mill. He is not likely to grudge being knocked up at night
when a gratuity is to be the result. And thus we conclude that all
observance of canonical hours will be dispensed with; and that the great
work of matrimonial registration will be practicable at any period of
the civil day.

If we were to indulge in the ludicrous on such a subject, we should only
have to imagine a marriage bazaar of this kind, opened at a
watering-place or at the sea-side, where young ladies might be attended
or waylaid by amorous exiles of Erin, watching the _mollia tempora_ to
wile the confiding fair one from the library to the pastry-cook's, and
from the pastry-cook's to the registrar's shop, or else taking shelter
within the statutory office during a shower of rain, or arranging to
meet at that happy rendezvous after the concert or ball. Or take the
converse case, of gawky country lads, hooked in by knowing widows or
other female adventurers, and the chain riveted in an unguarded moment,
before their unhappy parents, or even the witless victims themselves,
had dreamed that it was forging. But even this kind of publicity is not
necessary. As far as we see, the registrar may, at any hour, be summoned
to attend at the most private spot of his district, and there be
compelled to witness and _legalise_ the most monstrous match that could
be imagined, or the most infamous advantage that duplicity ever gained
over simple folly or unsuspecting inexperience.

Who can doubt that scenes of this kind are not unlikely to occur under
such a change of the law? When the restraints of moral customs and
habits have been broken through by the interference of the legislature;
and when an invitation is thus held out, and a mechanism provided for
precipitate marriages, who can calculate the infinite evils that will
ensue? The obvious fruits of such a system will be conjugal unhappiness
and consequent infidelity, the neglect of children, and the weakening of
all domestic affections. The worst mischiefs to the personal and social
character of a people have always sprung from a disregard of the serious
and solemn nature of the marriage tie; and the least risk of such laxity
is to be deprecated.

"Foecunda culpae saecula nuptias
Primum inquinavere, et genus et domos;
Hoc fonte derivata clades