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In a message dated 31/08/99 09:05:55 GMT Daylight Time, [log in to unmask] writes: << W. E. Tate, 'The parish chest' (1951), p. 64, says: "After many dozen appalling scandals the whole business [of clandestine marriages] was dealt with by the great Marriage Act of 1753, and since then, enterprising young men who felt disposed to elope with heiresses have had to cross the border into Scotland, where the marriage law was until 1939 less calculated to interfere with their schemes, or to the Channel Islands, vessels for which, specially designed for runaway couples, were until comparatively recent years always ready to set sail from Southampton." >> I appreciate the responses to my original query but does anyone actually have evidence that there was such a trade or are the various books merely repearting one another. There was also a large smuggling trade in human hair from the Channel Island to Southampton apparently. I am afraid that my morbid sense of humour (it is still August and the silly season) is tempted to connect the two items %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%