- Licence from the Superintendent Registrar.
- Certificate from the Superintendent Registrar.
- Licence from the Superintendent Registrar.
- Certificate from the Superintendent Registrar.
“By the English law as it stood before the passing of the Act of 6 and 7 Will. IV., c. 85, no marriage could be lawfully solemnized (except where both the parties were Quakers or Jews respectively) in any other place than a church or public chapel wherein banns might be published, unless by special licence from the Archbishop of Canterbury. This law was enforced by severe penalties; and if any persons intermarried without licence from a competent authority, or without the previous publication of banns, the marriage was null and void to all intents and purposes. Thus all persons (with the exception of Jews and Quakers), whether conforming to the Church of England or not, were compelled to resort to the Established Church in order to have their marriages lawfully solemnized. The boon conferred upon Roman Catholics and Dissenters generally by the amended law of 1836, which enables them to marry in their own places of worship and according to their own forms, may well be appreciated. The Act of 1856, besides abolishing the objectionable practice of reading notices of marriage before boards of guardians, has sanctioned marriage out of the district in the ‘usual place of worship’ of one of the parties, and reduced the interval between the giving of notice of marriage by licence and the grant of the licence from seven days to one clear day.”
The Law of Copyright.
The Publishers’ Circular gives the following summary of facts respecting the Copyright Laws:—In our own country, the copyright lasts 42 years absolutely for the author’s life, and seven years after his death. In Greece and in Sardinia it lasts only 15 years from the date of publication. In the Roman States it extends to 12 years after the author’s death. In Russia it lasts for 25 years after the author’s death, and for ten years more if a new edition has been published in the last five years of the first term. In Belgium and Sweden it lasts 20 years after the author’s death, with a provision in Sweden, that, should the representative of the author neglect to continue the publication, the copyright falls to the State. In France it lasts for the benefit of children or widow (that is, to the widow if she be what is called in France en communauté de biens, a peculiar arrangement in French marriage settlements, which establishes between husband and wife a perfect community in each other’s property) 30 years after the author’s death, but to other representatives only 10 years. In Spain it lasts 50 years, reckoning from the author’s death. In Austria, Bavaria, Portugal, Prussia, Saxony, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, Wurtemberg, and the States of the Germanic Confederation, it lasts 30 years from the author’s death, to all his heirs and assigns without distinction; and in Denmark, so recently as 1858, it lasted an indefinite period, provided the work was kept in print; now, however, it is restricted to a period of 30 years after the author’s death, with a provision that republication by others is permitted when five years have elapsed in which a work has been out of print. In the United States, copyright lasts for 28 years, and an extension of 14 years granted to the author if he lives, or to his widow, children, and grandchildren. With regard to lectures, sermons, &c., the law of France appears to be that professors and preachers have the sole right of reproducing their lectures and sermons in print; but that advocates and political speakers, while they alone have the right to publish their speeches in a collective or separate form, cannot prevent their being published in the journals of the time as news.
Holding over after Lease.
The doctrine is well established—viz., that where a tenant by lease holds over after the determination of the term, and pays rent, he becomes a tenant from year to year, under all the conditions of the expired lease consistent with such a tenancy. Baron Watson remarks—“It is important that no doubt should be thrown upon a question of such very general importance, as a great many of the houses in London and throughout the country are occupied by tenants holding over.”
Abolition of the Hop Duty.
The 15th September, 1862, dates the freedom of English Hops from Excise impost, and the abolition of Customs duties upon foreign Hops. Time alone can show the effect so serious a change will have on the average prices of a produce of increasing importance throughout the world. The general opinion is that under perfect freedom of trade hops will vary in price in each district of production only in proportion to their quality and the cost of transport; and that consumers will find prices more uniformly even than has hitherto been known, since the simultaneous failure in the crop at home and abroad is beyond probability.
This tax was first imposed by Mr. Harley in the year 1711; and its removal will make the hopgrower in future free from those heavy losses which the Duty inflicted on him in years of large crops and small prices. Hopgrowing has now become a simple farming operation, left to natural causes. It might be that, owing to the costly nature of the production and the precarious nature of the crop, it would always remain a somewhat more speculative branch of business than any other branch of farming. It is, however, thought that the supply of hops will be more abundant, and, above all, more steady and uniform from year to year. The consequence will be that the beer we drink will be more wholesome. Burton, in his Anatomy of Melancholy, says: “Beer made without hops is productive of heaviness and melancholy; but that well hopped is an antidote to it.”