above two changes of raiment, at that time or upon that occasion; under a penalty of a fourth part of their yearly rentals, or if they had no rents, then one-fourth part of their movables, but " mean craftsmen and ser vants " were not to be mulcted more than one hundred marks. The ecclesiastical law-makers also object ed to music and dancing at these banquets. In 1599 the session summoned one David Wemyss before it, because he had been to a wedding dance. Davie was rather imperti nent, for he admitted his presence and said he had never seen dancing stopped before, and that the custom was kept in his village before any of the session was born. David was, thereupon, imprisoned in the church steeple for contumacy; after a time he cried "Peccavi." In 1649 the General Assembly inhibited dancing. For " pypering at bridals " William Wal lace, pyper, was sentenced by the kirk ses sion of St. Cuthbert's " to stand one day on the pillar and thereafter to remove forth of the parochin, ay and untill he be ane renewit man of his maneris.and get leef of the presbyterie to returne after they see amend ment in his lyf and conversatione." Adam Moffatt, another piper, was in 1638, on November 16, ordered by another session for a similar offense, " the next Sabbath to stand at the kirk door with one pair of scheitteis (sheets) about him, beir fuit and beir legitt, and after the pepill was in to go to the place of repentance, and so to continew Sabbathlic induring their willis." Another poor piper was a few years later required to stand two days in the public place of repentance, and to pay £20, or otherwise give over his pypering. Some kirk sessions forbade the presence of pipers at weddings and punished the newly-married pair if they had them there. Gretna Green marriage ceremonies were not intended for Scotch people but for English persons, and so were the similar performances at Coldstream-on-the-Tweed.
Runaways from England who desired speedy marriage could accomplish their purpose by simply declaring themselves to be man and wife in the presence of witnesses on Scottish soil. Gretna Green was the most popular place as there were always one or two per sons there with printed forms of certificates of marriage, ready to be filled up. Robert Elliot, the last " border priest," says that between 1811 and 1839 no less than 7,744 persons were married by his certificate. The toll-gate keeper, John Murray, gener ally married upwards of four hundred couples in a year. These border marriages were suppressed by 19 & 20 Vict., c. 96, sec. 1, which de clared that after the 31st day of December, 1856, no irregular marriage contracted in Scotland, by declaration, acknowledgment or ceremony shall be valid, unless one of the parties had at the date thereof his, or her, usual place of residence there, or had lived in Scotland for twenty-one days next preceding such marriage; any law, custom or usage to the contrary notwithstanding. And twenty-one days means twenty-one full days, as was decided by Sir James Hannen in Lawford v. Davies (4 Pro. Div. 61). In that case Miss Lawford and Mr. Davies, in tending to contract a clandestine marriage, left London by a train timed to pass Berwick-on-Tweed at 4 A.M. on the 1st of July, 1870, and they reached Edinburgh at 6 A.M. of that day. They remained until the 2 1 st of July, and about noon on that day contracted a marriage, by declaration, be fore a registrar in Edinburgh. It was de cided that they had lived in Scotland only nineteen days and two half-days before the ceremony and therefore the marriage was declared invalid, much to Miss Lawford's delight. Regular marriages in Scotland are per formed by a minister, or clergyman, after one publication. It is now not necessary that the banns be called in the parish church. By a statute passed in 1878, it
