religious ceremony, nor even the presence of a clergyman, though the
religious habits of the people prefer both. To be valid, the Scottish
law required only that the marriage contract should be witnessed.
When the Fleet was shut against lovers in 1754, those impatient of
parental control, and possessed of means to defray travelling expenses,
repaired to Scotland. Edinburgh for a time supplied their wants: the
last, we believe, who carried on a regular traffic in runaway weddings
here was Joseph Robertson, who, several years ago, died miserably of
hunger in London. But it was on the line of the borders adjoining
England that those weddings abounded. At Lamberton Toll, the nearest
Scottish ground to Berwick, the business was for many years done at a
very low price. After the erection of the suspension-bridge, six miles
above Berwick, marriages were performed there. A "Sheen Brig" wedding
became a common occurrence both to Northumberland and Berwickshire
lovers. At Coldstream, also, those marriages were common. But it was
at Gretna-Green, and Sark Toll Bar, and Springfield, nine miles from
Carlisle, that the "high-fly" runaways from England tied their nuptial
knots in greatest number. All the space between Carlisle and the Border
was common land, until of late years, inhabited only by smugglers
and persons of unsettled life. The Scottish parish of Gretna, on the
north side of the Sark stream, which there divides the countries, had
a population of a like character. After the act of 1754 had shut the
Fleet parsons out of shop in London, one of them paid his debts in the
prison, and advertised his removal to Gretna. Thither he was followed
by adventurous couples who failed to obtain the consent of parents and
guardians to their union. At his death a native of the place, known
as "Scott o' the Brig" (Sark Bridge), took up the business. He was
succeeded by one Gordon, an old soldier; and Gordon by the notorious
Joseph Paisley. Paisley was succeeded by several rivals, of whom Elliot
and Laing were the principals. Mr. Linton, of Gretna Hall, became chief
priest after Laing's death, which occurred through cold taken in a
journey to Lancaster, in 1826, where he was required as a witness in
the prosecution of the Wakefields for the abduction of Miss Turner.
In 1841, the writer visited Gretna and Springfield to inspect the
registers, and found them a mass of loose papers. At that time the
larger part of the matrimonial trade was done--for couples arriving
on foot--by Mrs. Baillie and Miss Baillie, her daughter, who kept
Sark Bridge Toll; the post-chaise weddings going to Mr. Linton, of
Gretna Hall: his register, unlike the older ones, was a well-written
official-looking volume. Peter Elliot, formerly priest, was then an
old man. He had in his younger days been a postboy, but was reduced to
the office of "strapper" in a stable at Carlisle. Excess of whisky on
his part, and the more genteel competition of the occupier of Gretna
Hall, had driven him out of the marriage trade. But in his lifetime
he had been concerned in many races and chases over the nine miles
between Carlisle and Gretna, and would tell of the beautiful daughters
of England, whom, with whip and spur and shout, and wild halloo, he
had carried at the gallop across the border; the pursuing guardian, or
jilted lover, or angry father in sight behind, urging on post-boys who
also whipped and spurred and hallooed, but took care never to overtake
the fugitives until too late. Then there were tales of how time was too
short even for the brief ceremony, and how the officiating priest broke
off, exclaiming, "Ben the house, ben and into bed, into bed, my leddy!"
They were proud to boast of two Lord Chancellors having been married
there, one of whom, Erskine, arrived in the travelling costume of an
old lady.
About the year 1794 it was estimated that sixty couples were married
annually, they paying an average of 15 guineas each, yielding a revenue
of 945_l._ a year or thereabout. The form of certificate was in latter
times printed, the officiating priest not being always sufficiently
sober to write; nor when sober was he an adept in penmanship, as the
following from the pen of Joseph Paisley may show:--
"This is to sartify all persons that may be concernid that (A. B.) from
the parish of (C.) and in county of (D.) and (E. F.) from the parish
of (G.) and county of (H.), and both comes before me and declayred
themselves both to be single persons, and nowe mayried by the forme of
the Kirk of Scotland and agreeible to the Church of England, and givne
ondre my hand this 18th day of March, 1793."
Joseph Paisley, writer of this, was originally a weaver, at some
other time a tobacconist. He was the so-called "Blacksmith," though
there is no record that he, his predecessors, or successors were real
blacksmiths. He removed from Gretna to the village of Springfield,
half a mile distant, in 1791, and attended to his lucrative employment
till his death in 1814. He was tall in person, and in prime of life
well-proportioned; but before he died had grown enormously corpulent,
weighing upwards of 25 stone. By his natural enemies--the parish
clergymen--he was said to be grossly ignorant and coarse in his
manners, drinking a Scotch pint of whisky in various shapes of toddy
and raw drams in a day. On one occasion he and a companion, named Ned
the Turner, sat down on a Monday morning to an anker of strong cognac,
and before the evening of Saturday they kicked the empty cask out at
the door! He was also celebrated for his stentorian lungs and almost
incredible muscular strength. He could with one hand bend a strong
poker over his arm, and was frequently known to straighten an ordinary
horse-shoe with his hands. But he could not break asunder the bands of
matrimony which he so easily rivetted. Law stamped his handiwork with
the title of sanctity. The Gretna and Sark Toll marriages greatly
increased in number through the facilities of railway conveyance. The
fugitives, when obtaining a start by an express train, could not be
overtaken by another, while the ordinary third-class carried away so
many customers for cheap marriages from their English parish clergy,
that the Legislature was invoked, and enacted that on and after the
1st January, 1857, no marriage should be valid in Scotland unless
the parties had both resided in Scotland for the last six weeks next
preceding the wedding-day. In the evidence upon this Bill, one of the
_marriers_, Murray, of Gretna, admitted that he had married between
700 and 800 couples in a year; and as there were two or three other of
these marriers in good practice, the number of couples married at Sark
Toll Bar and at Gretna may be safely estimated at upwards of 1,000 in a
year.
The alteration in the law was effected through the happy effort of
a magistrate of Cumberland, immediately and ably supported by the
magistrates of the county, who signed a petition committed to the
charge of Lord Brougham. His Lordship forthwith introduced a Bill,
after Easter, 1856, which Bill passed through Parliament without
opposition.[9]
[9] For the details of the measure, see "Irregular Marriages,"
_Knowledge for the Time_, 1864, pp. 120-123.
The Agapemone, or Abode of Love.
This strange place, Agapemone (Gr. αγαπη love, and μονη an abode), was the general residence of a peculiar sect of
religionists, established in 1845 at Charlinch, near Taunton, in
Somersetshire. They were originally a branch of the sect called
Lampeters, and their peculiar tenets are, that the day of grace and
prayer is passed, and the time of judgment arrived. They carry out
their belief by perpetual praises to God, but do not adopt the use of
prayer. The members enter into a community of property, and profess
to live in a state of constant joyousness and mutual love. In 1849 a
singular trial, connected with this institution, occupied the Court
of Exchequer for three days. It was an action brought by Miss Louisa
Nottidge, a maiden lady of large property, against her brother and
brother-in-law, for forcibly abducting her from the Agapemone, and
confining her in a lunatic asylum. It appeared that the plaintiff and
her three sisters, all ladies of considerable property, had become
converts to the opinions of this sect, and taken up their abode in the
Agapemone, where the sisters were married to three of the clerical
rulers of the establishment; but Miss Louisa Nottidge, who had remained
single, was forcibly taken away by the two defendants, and sent to a
lunatic asylum; for which alleged wrong she obtained 50_l._ damages;
thus showing that she was not insane, and that the law, as the Chief
Baron observed, tolerated every sect, however absurd, that did not
inflict a social wrong, or openly violate the laws of morality.
Since that period the sect has been sending its missionaries to
different parts of the country, in order to gain converts. On the 26th
of September, 1856, two of these missionaries called a meeting at
the Hanover Square Rooms, in London, when one of them addressed the
assembled visitors in an unintelligible jargon relative to the mission
of a certain "Brother Prince," the head of the Agapemone, who had, he
said, been made a "vessel of mercy" for the human race, and who was to
supersede the Gospel by some new religious dispensation which he had
been specially commissioned to teach. The other missionary then stated
that he would explain who Brother Prince was. He was by nature, he
said, a child of wrath, but by grace a vessel of mercy. The testimony
of Brother Prince was concerning what Jesus Christ had done by his own
person. Some eleven years ago, he said, the Holy Ghost fulfilled in
Brother Prince all that he came to be and to do. The speaker proceeded
to allude to a second spiritual manifestation which, he said, occurred
at the Agapemone about five years ago, in which case the phenomenon was
exhibited in the person of a woman--a prophetess--"not privately, but
in the presence of all." These sentiments were uttered in the midst of
general execration; and a resolution was unanimously passed, "That the
statements which had been made that evening were contrary to common
sense, degrading to humanity, and blasphemous towards God."--_English
Cyclopædia._
Singular Scotch Ladies.
Lord Cockburn, in his _Memorials of his Time_, speaks of "a singular
race of Scotch old ladies," who were a delightful set; warm-hearted,
very resolute, indifferent about the modes and habits of the modern
world, and adhering to their own ways, who dressed, spoke, and did
exactly as they chose. Among these examples of perfect naturalness was
a Miss Menie Trotter, of whom Miss Grahame, in her _Mystifications_,
relates:--"She was penurious in small things, but her generosity could
rise to circumstances. Her dower was an annuity from the estate of
Mortonhall. She had contempt for securities, and would trust no bank
with her money, but kept all her bills and bank-notes in a green silk
bag that hung on her toilette-glass. On each side of the table stood
a large white bowl, one of which contained her silver, the other her
copper money, the latter always full to the brim, accessible to Peggy,
her handmaid, or any other servant in the house, for the idea of any
one stealing money never entered her brain. Indeed, she once sent a
present to her niece, Mrs. Cuninghame, of a fifty-pound note wrapped
up in a cabbage-leaf, and entrusted it to the care of a woman who
was going with a basket of butter to the Edinburgh market. My friend
Mrs. Cuninghame related to me this and the following histories of her
aunt:--One day, in the course of conversation, she said to her niece,
'Do you ken, Margaret, that Mrs. Thomas R---- is dead. I was gaun by
the door this morning, and thought I wad just look in and speer for
her. She was very near her end, but quite sensible, and expressed
her gratitude to God for what He had done for her and her fatherless
bairns. She said "she was leaving a large young family with very small
means, but she had that trust in _Him_ that they would not be forsaken,
and that He would provide for them." Now, Margaret, ye'll tell Peggy
to bring down the green silk bag that hangs on the corner of my
looking-glass, and ye'll tak' twa thousand pounds out o' it, and gi'e
it Walter Ferrier for behoof of thae orphan bairns; it will fit out
the laddies, and be something to the lassies. I want to make good the
words, "that God wad provide for them," for what else was I sent that
way this morning, but as a humble instrument in his hands?'"
Miss Trotter had a strong friendship for a certain Mrs. B----, who had
an only son, and he was looked on as a simpleton, but his relatives had
interest to get him a situation as clerk in a bank, where he contrived
to steal money to the extent of five hundred pounds. His peculations
were discovered, and in those days he would have been hanged, but Miss
Trotter hearing the report started instantly for Edinburgh, went to the
bank, and ascertained the truth. She at once laid down five hundred
pounds, telling them, "Ye maun not only stop proceedings, but ye maun
keep him in the bank in some capacity, however mean, till I find some
other employment for him." Then she fitted the lad out, and sent him to
London, where she had a friend to whom she wrote, offering another five
hundred pounds to any one who would procure him a situation abroad, in
which he might gain an honest living, and never be trusted with money.
After all this was settled, she went herself and communicated the facts
to his mother.
Mrs. Bond, of Hackney.
About the year 1771 there died one of the four children of Bond,
a jeweller, residing in an alley leading from Wellclose Square to
Ratcliffe Highway. She left property, to be divided between Mrs. S.
Bond, of Hackney, and a sister. The latter died in the year 1801, and
left her property, amounting to about 6,000_l._, to her surviving
sister, Sarah, who bought an annuity of 700_l._ By living in a most
parsimonious manner she contrived to scrape together about 13,000l.
three per cent., 1,000_l._ four percent., and 150_l._ per year Long
Annuities.
In 1821 Mrs. Bond, who was of most eccentric habits, died at her
residence, Cambridge Heath, Hackney, leaving, it was said, great
wealth, which was to be paid to King George the Fourth, _if no relative
could be found to claim it_. After her death, vestry and parish
clerks, beadles, sextons, country schoolmasters, and persons holding
any official situations about cathedral churches, &c.--in short,
innumerable persons who had leisure or opportunity for such inquiry,
set about searching for Mrs. Bond's pedigree; but all to no effect.
Some ludicrous incidents, however, occurred in the neighbourhood of
Mrs. Bond's residence, where persons arrived from various parts of the
country to claim a relationship. Among the number a man and his son
arrived from Sunderland, whence they had walked. He stated that his
name was Bond; he was sure the deceased was his sister, and he would
not quit London without the money. Upon investigation he could produce
no other authority than being of the same name, and was, therefore,
compelled to retrace his steps, almost penniless.
About a week afterwards, a decently-dressed elderly woman, named
Bond, made her appearance. She had just arrived outside the coach
from the environs of Carmarthen. Her story was that about fifty years
previously (1771), her sister left her and proceeded to London to
seek her fortune. They had never corresponded, but from the name and
description of the deceased, she had no doubt she was her sister, and
the money accordingly belonged to her. It had cost her nearly all the
money she could raise to come from Wales, fully satisfied of being
amply repaid for her trouble, but she met with the same fate as the
preceding applicant.
The next claimant was a sailor, who had just returned from the West
Indies, where he had been _moored_, he said, thirty-five years. He
had left in England two sisters named Bond: one was of very eccentric
manners, particularly for her love of money; the sailor declared that
he had frequently seen her make a meal off cat's meat. The above he
considered sufficient proof of his relationship. He insisted upon
entering a caveat against the claim of his Majesty, but acknowledging
that the King appeared to be the legal claimant, he swore he would go
and see his royal master, and ask him if he had any objection to share
the money with him!
It would be tedious to enumerate the persons who put in their claims
from various parts of the world; but the King's proctor stood first in
the Prerogative Court, and nothing had transpired to affect his right
in behalf of his Majesty.
The hut on Cambridge Heath wherein Mrs. Bond died was closed for some
time; at length it was announced to be let; but such was the anxiety
to get possession of it that the notice was removed. The number of
applications were, doubtless, made under the impression that hoards of
money were yet undiscovered in the hut.
The claimant most likely entitled to the property was a Mr. Bond, a
butcher, in Shoreditch, who traced out that he was second cousin to the
wealthy spinster, his grandfather having been the only brother of the
father of Mrs. Bond; and the only bar to his administering was that he
had not been able to ascertain the church where Mrs. Bond's father and
mother were married, a most essential point to prove the legitimacy
of Mrs. Sarah Bond. There were no fewer than eight caveats against the
administrator.
John Ward, the Hackney Miser.
In Church Street, Hackney, one of the most interesting of our suburban
parishes for its antiquarian history, stands a mansion, which, though
plain in itself, has long been traditionally conspicuous, from the
infamous character of its founder. This was John Ward, a man who was
so notorious for his readiness to take advantage of the foibles, the
wants, and vices of his fellow-men, that it attracted the satirical
acrimony of Pope, who, in his epistle to Allen, Lord Bathurst, _On the
Use of Riches_, has placed him in a niche in the Temple of Obloquy, in
company with a trio, who seem fit to descend with him to posterity,
or rather to accompany him in the descent alluded to in the following
lines:--
Like doctors thus, when much dispute has pass'd,
We find our tenets just the same at last;
Both fairly owning riches, in effect,
No grace of Heaven or token of the elect:
Given to the fool, the mad, the vain, the evil,
To Ward, to Waters, Chartres, and the Devil.
Of Ward's private history little is known. He is said to have been
early in life employed in a floorcloth manufactory. The exact period
when he built the house at Hackney is uncertain. He resided in it
in the year 1727, at which time he sat in Parliament for Melcombe
Regis. But having _made a mistake with respect to a name in a deed_
in which the interest of the Duchess of Buckingham was implicated, he
was prosecuted by her and convicted of forgery, was first expelled
the House of Commons, and then stood in the pillory, on the 17th of
March, 1727. As misfortune seldom comes alone, about this time Ward was
suspected of joining in a conveyance with Sir John Blunt to secrete
50,000_l._ of that director's estate forfeited to the South Sea Company
by Act of Parliament. The Company recovered the 50,000_l._ against
Ward, and by execution swept away the whole of the furniture and other
effects in the mansion at Hackney. These being insufficient to cover
even the costs, Ward sought to protect his other property, set up prior
conveyances of his real estate to his brother and son, and concealing
all his personal, which was computed to be 150,000_l._ Against these
paper fortifications, a bill in Chancery, ten times as voluminous, and
twenty times more zig-zag, was erected; a countermine of immense depth
was sprung, and however ably his works were defended, they were at
length carried. The conveyances were set aside, Ward was imprisoned,
and hazarded the forfeiture of his life by not giving in his effects
till the last day, which was that of his examination. During his
confinement his amusement was to give poison to dogs and cats, and see
them expire by slower or quicker torments!
In the _Post-boy_ newspaper of the period we find these records of
Ward's career:--In June, 1719, he recovered 300_l._ damages from one
Thomas Dyche, a schoolmaster of Bow, for printing and publishing a
libel upon Ward, reflecting upon the discharge of his trust about
repairing Dagenham Breach. In May, 1726, he fled to France or
Flanders. In June, 1731, he was indicted, with certain others, for
wounding several officers of the Commissioners of Bankruptcy; and in
September, 1732, he surrendered to the Commissioners, and was kept
under examination at Guildhall from three o'clock that afternoon till
three the next morning, when he was committed to the Fleet for further
examination.
To sum up the wealth of Ward at the several eras of his life: at
his standing in the pillory he was worth above 200,000_l._; at his
commitment to prison he was worth 150,000_l._, but became so far
diminished in his reputation as to be thought a worse man by fifty or
sixty thousand.
Among a variety of curious papers of Mr. Ward was found the following
extraordinary document, in his own handwriting, which may very
appropriately be called _The Miser's Prayer_:--
"O Lord, Thou knowest that I have nine estates in the City of London,
and likewise that I have lately purchased one estate in fee simple in
the county of Essex; I beseech Thee to preserve the two counties of
Middlesex and Essex from fire and earthquakes; and as I have a mortgage
in Hertfordshire, I beg of Thee likewise to have an eye of compassion
on that county; and for the rest of the counties Thou mayst deal with
them as Thou art pleased. O Lord, enable the Bank to answer their
bills, and make all my debtors good men. Give a prosperous voyage and
return to the 'Mermaid' sloop, because I have insured it; and as Thou
hast said the days of the wicked are but short, I trust in Thee that
Thou wilt not forget Thy promise, as I have purchased an estate in
reversion, which will be mine on the death of that profligate young
man, Sir J. L. Keep my friends from sinking, and preserve me from
thieves and housebreakers, and make all my servants so honest and
faithful that they may attend to my interests, and never cheat me out
of my property, night or day."
"Poor Man of Mutton."
This is a term applied to the remains of a shoulder of mutton, which,
after it has done its regular duty as a roast at dinner, makes its
appearance as a broiled bone at supper or upon the next day.
The late Earl of B., popularly known by the name of _Old Rag_, being
indisposed at an hotel in London, the landlord came to enumerate the
good things he had in his larder, hoping to prevail on his guest to
eat something. The Earl, at length, starting suddenly from his couch,
and throwing back a tartan nightgown, which had covered his singularly
grim and ghastly face, replied to his host's courtesy:--"Landlord,
I think I _could_ eat a morsel of _a poor man_." Boniface, surprised
alike at the extreme ugliness of Lord B.'s countenance and the nature
of the proposal, retreated from the room, and tumbled down-stairs
precipitately, having no doubt that this barbaric chief when at home
was in the habit of eating a joint of a tenant or vassal when his
appetite was dainty.--_Jamieson's Etymological Dictionary._
Lord Kenyon's Parsimony.
Lord Kenyon studied economy even in the hatchment put up over his house
in Lincoln's Inn Fields after his death. The motto was certainly found
to be "_Mors janua vita_"--this being at first supposed to be the
mistake of the painter. But when it was mentioned to Lord Ellenborough,
"Mistake!" exclaimed his lordship, "it is no mistake. The considerate
testator left particular directions in his will that the estate should
not be burdened with the expense of a _diphthong_!" Accordingly, he had
the glory of dying very rich. After the loss of his eldest son, he said
with great emotion to Mr. Justice Allan Park, who repeated the words
soon after to the narrator:--"How delighted George would be to take
his poor brother from the earth, and restore him to life, although he
receives 250,000_l._ by his decease!"
Lord Kenyon occupied a large, gloomy house in Lincoln's Inn Fields:
there is this traditional description of the mansion in his time--"All
the year through it is Lent in the kitchen and Passion-week in the
parlour." Some one having mentioned that, although the fire was very
dull in the kitchen-grate, the _spits_ were always bright,--"It is
quite irrelevant," said Jekyll, "to talk about the _spits_, for
_nothing_ 'turns' _upon them_." * * He was curiously economical about
the adornment of his head. It was observed for a number of years
before he died, that he had two hats and two wigs--of the hats and
the wigs one was dreadfully old and shabby, the other comparatively
spruce. He always carried into court with him the very old hat and the
comparatively spruce wig, or the very old wig and the comparatively
spruce hat. On the days of the very old hat and the comparatively
spruce wig, he shoved his hat under the bench and displayed his wig;
but on the days of the very old wig and the comparatively spruce hat,
he always continued covered. He might often be seen sitting with his
hat over his wig, but the Rule of Court by which he was governed on
this point is doubtful.
Mary Moser, the Flower-Painter.