Page:The Galaxy, Volume 5.djvu/210

200 presence of a third party. Marriage may be constituted by present consent—"per verba de presente;" by future promise and living together—"per verba de futuro subsequente copula." It may be exchanged in writing, actual written consent to marriage, or writing from which such consent may be reasonably inferred. For instance, it was held in a case of Dobson vs. Dobson, that the defendant, having addressed repeated letters through the post to the lady as Mrs. Dobson, and she having lived with him as his wife, the acknowledgment was sufficient, although no ceremony of marriage was proved or averred. Sometimes a sign suffices. A man named Macadam, the inventor of the roads which now bear his name, lived on his own estate with a housekeeper or governess. One morning he assembled his household, the housekeeper at their head, and thus addressed them: "Ye'll tak notice this lady is my wife." The housekeeper bowed, and they were dismissed. During the course of the day, Mr. Macadam went into his grounds and there blew his brains out. The ex-governess claimed dower as his widow, and the estates for her eldest son. A fiercely-contested trial ensued, which was eventually decided in favor of the widow and children. Marriage may be constituted without present acknowledgment or written consent, viz., by "habit and repute." It is this: If a man and woman live together for a number of years (months will not suffice), conduct themselves respectably as married people, the more especially if there is a family, the law presumes they have entered the married relation, and that consent at some time has passed between them verbally, though not proven. These marriages are the most difficult to establish, as the proof is usually adduced after the death of one or both parties, to secure property.

The great Breadalbane case is such a one. It has occupied the Scotch courts and the House of Lords for the last seven years. The late Marquis of Breadalbane died childless. Two heirs claimed the peerage and estates, the largest in Scotland, amounting to about one hundred thousand pounds a year. The one claimant was the descendant of the direct branch of the family tree; the other was descended from an interloping Scotch marriage of habit and repute. The story is so full of romance, and so illustrative of this Scotch principle of marriage, that a slight sketch of it may convey to the reader a clearer idea of Scotch marriage law and practice than any lengthened legal disquisition.

A wild young Campbell, scion of the great house of Breadalbane, and second son of the Marquis, while quartered with his Highland regiment in a small town in England, saw and fell desperately in love with the beautiful young wife of a small tradesman, a saddler. Veni, vidi, vici, seems to have been his motto as well as Cæsar's, for when the regiment marched off he carried the fair lady along with him, and the saddler was left lamenting, for divorce courts were out