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Show Gretna Green, Just Over Scottish Line, Still Popular With the Runaway Couples mobile than by any other means of locomotion. So it is quite fitting that the nearest near-est building to England is now a gasoline filling station, and that the gas man traffics in the commodity on which the Green smiths grew famed and opulent. Over his stand is a sign: "We have perforrped more than 10,000 marriages." It is also a good place to buy postcards, ginger beer and cigarettes. One half mile beyond the stone bridge that arches the flood between Scotland and its neighbor, and the adjacent filling station, the blacksmith black-smith shop stands as of yore. Gretna Green has about the same relationship to England that Toledo had to Detroit until the state of Ohio got tough about marriages, observes the Globetrotter in the Detroit News. It's a handy spot just one-quarter mile over the Scottish border. In ye olden tymme, runaway couples who couldn't wait for the bans to be published pub-lished in England, or who wished to avoid mention in the society columns col-umns of the day, or who feared to face father, went swiftly to Gretna Green. There, according to the Scottish law, they could be married by any Mac, Jock or Sandy. But because the Green smithy was the nearest thing to the border, the Green smith became the favored marrying priest at the Green. It kept him busy in between horses. Time has wrought change in Gretna Gret-na Green. Though marrying is still one of the principal industries, the smithy has been outdone. We note in sadness that this is no longer the horse age, and that motor cars now wear most of the laurels once reserved re-served for Morgans and thoroughbreds. thorough-breds. Statistics show that more persons travel to Scotland by auto- |