The present writer owes much to the faithful care of a good clerk, who
guarded well the registers of a defunct City church of London. My father
was endeavouring to prove his title to an estate in the north country,
and had to obtain the certificates of the births, deaths, and marriages
of the family during about a century. One wedding could not be proved.
Report stated that it had been a runaway marriage, and that the bride
and bridegroom had fled to London to be married in a City church. My
father casually heard of the name of some church where it was thought
that the wedding might have taken place. He wrote to the authorities of
that church. It had, however, ceased to exist. The church had
disappeared, but the old clerk was alive and knew where the books were.
He searched, and found the missing register, and the chain of evidence
was complete and the title to the property fully established, which was
confirmed after much troublesome litigation by the Court of Chancery.
Sometimes litigants have sought to remove troublesome entries in those
invaluable books which record with equal impartiality the entrance into
the world and the departure from it of peer or peasant. And in such
dramas the clerk frequently appears. The old man has to be bribed or
cajoled to allow the books to be tampered with.
Pages:
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192