It formerly cost twenty-five dollars to be married by the Church, and a large part of its revenues came from that source. The peons, who scarcely ever are able to accumulate so much money, therefore lived in a state of concubinage, and more than half the children born in Chili were illegitimate. Now a marriage certificate can be secured from a civil magistrate for twenty-five cents, and persons cohabiting without it are subject to fine and imprisonment. The archbishop has issued a decree excommunicating from the Church all persons who are married by the civil right, and the Catholics of the country, comprising ninety-nine per cent. of the population, are in a serious dilemma. They are compelled to choose between excommunication and imprisonment, and therefore in the upper classes weddings are no longer fashionable. Some people go first to the church and then to the magistrate, and run the risk of excommunication; but the more conscientious prefer to remain single. Just now in Santiago there is a young man of brilliant attainments, a member of Congress and a leader of the Liberal party, who wants to marry the daughter of a prominent merchant. The engagement has been existing for several years, and both parties are willing to fulfil it according to a civil law; but the girl’s mother is a devout Catholic, and will not consent to a wedding without the blessing of a priest. The young man is willing to go to the church as well as to the magistrate, but the archbishop has forbidden any priest to marry him without a full retraction by him of his political record. This he refuses to make, and the couple are preparing to go to the United States or some European country to have the ceremony performed. Not long ago there was a marriage in high life in one of the southern provinces of Chili, which attracted wide attention from the fact that it was the first defiance of the Church in that part of the country. On the Sunday following the wedding the couple were denounced by the bishop from the pulpit of the cathedral, and the Catholic newspaper published some brutal comments to the effect that the young couple had placed themselves on the level of beasts by cohabiting without the blessing of the Church. The bride’s brother belabored the editor so that he will be a cripple for life, and would have given the bishop a similar chastisement had not the latter kept out of the way.