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Show ??????????? is one recently decided before a New York court. The facts of the case as related by the Syracuse Courier are as follows: Nancy V. Campbell has brought suit against her nephew, Dr. Orson L. Crampton, for breach of promise. The defendant is a leading physician, practicing his profession in the city of Mobile, Ala. The two parties to the suit were residents of Mobile for several years up to 1877, and, owing to their kin-ship, were frequently in each other's company. Although Miss Campbell was several years the senior of the rising young doctor, their constant companionship fed the flame of love, which was finally fanned into a plighted troth. The engagement of marriage was made in 1873. It was not long after this strange and unusual proceeding became known, that Dr. Crampton was admonished by his friends that a union of blood relations like themselves would be illegal and incestuous. This warning so alarmed the young doctor that he sought legal counsel, and was informed that a marriage such as he proposed would be null and void. Dr. Crampton carried the sad tidings to his lady-love, but she could not see any good reason why they could not be joined in the holy bonds of matrimony so long as they loved one another. In 1877, the lady came north to reside with friends; and a year later the nephew-lover found his way to Lockport, New York. While visiting there he was arrested, charged with breach of promise. The susceptible and tender hearted maiden aunty pressed her claim; and a jury who thought she had been doomed unjustly to exist without the conjugal caresses of her youthful relative, gave her a verdict for $10,000. Now the doctor's lawyers are endeavoring to secure a new trial of the cause. The case is a very complicated one, and raises so many intricate and delicate questions that its trial will make a celebrated one. Among the questions which the decision of this case will settle are those of domicile and what constitutes it; whether a nephew can marry his aunt; how far the laws of England govern the laws of the United States; whether first cousins can marry; whether a man can marry his brother's wife; in fact, all questions relating to Levitical or forbidden degrees of marriage. |