"SURPRISE" MARRIAGE.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 216, 5 June 1908, Page 5

"SURPRISE" MARRIAGE.

/ ,WEDDING AT A THEATRICAL •' PERFORMANCE.Readers of Mrs. Croker's novels will rcJiember that in one of her stories she makes a gallant young soldier take part in ama- ■ teur theatricals at a house in Scotland, at the conclusion of which he finds he is by Scottish law really married to the little hoyden with whom ho has gone through a mock marnago ceremony. , The London. ''Express" tolls of a case where • a young couple'whoso parents forbade their marriago had recourso to tho same expedient. r The 'story comes from Castplnioro, Dalmatia, where a young couple were wedded in the presence of their friends and-relatives, although the latter objected strenuously to the match. ■ Tho bridegroom was Anton Iron, a young and penniless lawyer., and his sweetheart, an eighteen-year-old girl named Estelle Berger, tho daughter of a local merchant. As nor parents refused to sanction the match, and the girl refused'to' take part in a clandestino marriage, the lovers were ill despair until Herr Iron thought of an ingenious way out , of the difficulty. ' . > Both ho and 'his sweetheart wo'ro onthn- . Biastic members of : . an" amateur dramatic club.-, He arranged a theatrical performance, 'ill which both of them took part, and which" included a two-act, comedy. In tho last act of tho comedy the hero and horoino wero married on the stage in full view of the audience. Tlio theatre was crowded, the proceeds of the entertainment being devoted to charity., Fraulcin Bcrgcr's parents, were astounded, when they waited for their daughter after the performance, io bo informed, that sho \ had been really married, and that the actor who impersonated a clergyman was really a minister: The bride's father was so delighted at tho clover way in which he had been'.outwitted that lie gave/the couple a £50 note for their honeymoon, and'promised to furnish a homo for them.' -