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14
MARRIAGES.
In this parish there are fourteen Churches, fifteen Chapels, and
one Registry Office, licensed for marriages.

The proportion of persons married is 20 per thousand of the
population ; the corresponding rate for the whole of London is 18.9.
On April 1st, 1899, the new Marriage Act comes into operation.
It legalises marriages in Roman Catholic and Nonconformist
Chapels without the presence of the Civil Registrar, which has
hitherto been necessary in the case of marriages celebrated elsewhere
than in a Church, with the exception of those taking place in Jewish
Synagogues and Quaker Meeting Houses. For the future, Roman
Catholic Priests and Dissenting Ministers will have the same right
to unite in matrimony, to give valid certificates of marriage, and to
take fees for the same, as has hitherto been restricted to the Clergy
of the Established Church. The new law enacts certain regulations
as to registers and safe custody of documents, and moreover requires
that particulars of all marriages celebrated shall be forwarded to the
Superintendent Registrar of the district within three months after
the ceremony.