_Canongate Marriages._--According to the _Newgate Calendar_, vol. ii. p.
269., there seems to have existed, about the year 1745, a sort of
_Gretna Green_ in the Canongate of Edinburgh. It is long since I read
that _famous_ work, but I made an excerpt at the time, which is as
follows:
"It was customary for some of the ministers of the Church of
Scotland, who were out of employment, to marry people at the
ale-houses, in the same manner that the Fleet marriages were
conducted in London. Sometimes people of fortune thought it
prudent to apply to these marriage brokers; but, as their chief
business lay among the lower ranks of people, they were deridingly
called by the name of 'Buckle the Beggars.' Most of these
marriages were solemnized at public-houses in the Canongate."
This statement "comes in such a questionable shape," and from so
"questionable" a quarter, that really one cannot be blamed for
questioning it. Surely the ministers referred to must have been men
deprived of their charges? Can any correspondent of "N. & Q." speak to
this subject? I am certain that the Scottish clergy of that age would
never have suffered any _Buckle the Beggars_ to rank with them as
regular preachers, though "out of employment."