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FLEET MARRIAGES. By V1ncent Van Marter Beede. "IN walking along the street, in my youth, denied. Although a marriage, to be fully 1 on the side next to the prison," wrote approved by the sober-minded, must have Thomas Pennant, in his " History of Lon taken place in the presence of a priest and don," 1790, " I have often been tempted by two witnesses, yet even the common law the question, ' Sir, will you be pleased to uniting of man and wife, with only witnesses walk in and be married? ' Along this most present, could not be annulled by the lawless space was hung up the frequent sign Ecclesiastical Court, and was legalized in the of a male and a female head conjoined, with twelfth year of Charles IPs reign. So far as ' Marriages performed within ' written be can be gathered, Fleet marriages were neath. A dirty fellow invited you in. The "inaugurated" — as American newspapers parson was seen walking before his shop : a would say — by one George Lester, a debtor squalid profligate figure, clad in a tattered in Fleet Prison, married by the chaplain of plaid nightgown, with a fiery face, and ready that institution to "a woman of fortune, to couple you for a dram of gin or roll of Mistress Babbington." Little did Master tobacco. Our great chancellor, Lord Hard- 1 Lester realize what a vast succession of mar wicke, put these demons to flight, and saved riages he was " husbanding 1 " Clandestine thousands from the misery and disgrace wedlock was cheap and convenient. Festi which would be entailed by these extempo vals, settlements, presents, "drum and fid dle," and fees of priest and clerk brought the rary thoughtless unions." So the illustrious " Highway of Letters " outlay well up in the pounds sterling, and bann had come to this! Strange indeed that publishing was a tedious business. Then, too, ". . . here where the Fleet once tripped there were important personal considerations. The " rules " or boundaries of the Fleet In its ditch to the drumlie Thames;" where the old Tabard Inn sheltered the contained many worse than " fox-hunting" Canterbury Pilgrims; where Wynkyn de parsons. In the reign of Queen Anne there Worde printed strictly hand-made editions; was among the clergy a " conspicuous where Ben Jonson breathed out classical minority " of " unworthy vessels." Hogarth allusions; where Hogarth sketched scenes has pictured some of them in a familiar from Bridewell; where " Punch " was estab punch-bowl scene. With insatiable thirst lished; where Douglas Jerrold laid the scene and small purses the Fleet parsons jealously of his comedy, " Doves in a Cage," and where noted the increasing marital duties of the is the working-world of John Davidson's jour prison chaplain, and resolved to take away as nalists who speak in "Eclogues;" — strange much of his business as possible. Hence the that here, of all places, clandestine marriages scramble for would-be-weds which ended in a should have been contracted for over seventy grand climax only with the Hardwicke Act. Farringdon Street, along which " the river years at the rate of at least nine thousand a of wells," year! "With disemboguing streams Let it not be supposed that Fleet mar [Rolled] its large tribute of dead dogs to riages were illegal. Far from it. That they Thames," were in the worst possible taste cannot be