Those Marriage Agencies

New Zealand Tablet, 8 July 1909, Page 20

Those Marriage Agencies

The State Parliament in Victoria is at last rfbout to take "steps to suppress the nuisance of professional marriage agencies. Melbourne has been for 'years afflicted with those means of wedding in haste and repenting at leisure. So much we, in substance, learn from a recent Press Association cable message. The agent simply constituted himself a ' minister,' and got a few of his friends and acquaintances to sign a paper ' recognising ' him s.sthe ' head ' of their sect. He was then empowered by the State to solemnise marriage, and forthwith advertised himself ready and willing to come to the aid of loving couples at 'cut' rates — gold ring included. The .abuses to which such business agencies lent themselves may readi'y, be imagined. Tile scandals in connection with them were ventilated full many a time and oft in the divorce court — they ended at times in the Yarra and the morgue. And the ending of them has been too long delayed.