A HITCH AT THE ALTAR.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVIII, Issue 6003, 12 February 1881, Page 7

A HITCH AT THE ALTAR.

The question as to how near a couple car come to being married without actually beinj married has many times being practicallj answered. There have been hysterical bride: in the chancel vainly expecting a false bridegroom. There have been inconsiderate am' even revengeful brides, who have scandalisei the clergyman and the witnesses with a final "Ivo" when the service was in progress There have been forgetful clergymen anc belated certificates of authority. But per haps the narrowest escape from matrimonj yet recorded is reported from Lyons inFraiice It seems that the groom and the bride wer< charmingly agreed, not only in the affair: of the heart but of the pocket, for slie was ar heiress. There had been harmonious family meetings under the civil code, and no disturb ance of the harmony at the preliminarj lunches. The contract had been arranged al tlie notary's office. The day had arrived foi the civil marriage—which is, under the law of the Republic, the binding one—in the morning, and for the blessing of the priests at the cathedral altar in the afternoon. Tilt parties were before the mayor, and what a Chicago lawyer before a divorce jury called '■ the fatal question" had been duly asked of each and duly answered, whereupon the mayor had tendered his personal as well as official congratulations and had placed before them the attesting document which, when signed, made them-lawfully man and wife. At this moment enters a telegraphic messenger, R.U.U. The couple paused, pens in hand, the "witnesses looked amazed, and the mayor dropped his spectacles in a nervous fit as he handed the message to the bride's father. Tims the message : '' Monsieur has already been married in Germany, and his wife lives. Vouchers arc on their way to you by post." The mayor postpones the authentication for a week, as is his duty under the civil code when a warning comes. The week passes and no vouchers come. Everybody agrees it was the trick of a wretched and mean rival—everybody excepting the bride, who had been pondering over the telegram, and, to the surprise of everybody, believed it. She sends back the. diamond ring, the silver candlestick, the goldmounted priedieu, and the almost mother-in-law's ivory-bound breviary, and annuls the settlement. The Juge de Paix of Lyons hold a consulation with the lawyers and the notary, when it is unanimouslj agreed that the couple, as the English peasantry put it, were not a couple, bill a pair. The groom, resuming his condition of bachelor, has searched for the sender of the telegram, only to be made awire, without getting a clue to identity, that it was paid for by a " veiled womar in black."