66. A noteworthy feature of the marriages registered during the year was that 493 marriages took place between parties who had been married before by customary marriage. Section 39(2) of the Ordinance provides that the parties to a customary marriage may, if they so desire and provided they have not living any other undivorced spouse, contract with each other a marriage under the Ordinance, and that this shall not be deemed to prejudice the previous customary marriage. Many of the 493 marriages were performed at licensed places of worship. In fact, at one church, seventeen such marriages took place in a single week in March 1961.
Comparison with Previous Years
67. Table XV gives statistics of marriages registered in the past ten years. From this it will be seen that the number of marriages registered under the Marriage Ordinance has increased every year during the decade, and that the 1960-61 total of 11,045 is more than five times the total of 2,111 in 1951-52. With the opening of the new Registries and the growing appreciation of the value of registered marriages there is every reason to suppose that the number of such marriages will continue to increase.
Fees
68. The fees collected totalled the record figure of $132,670, $15,736 more than in 1959-60. Particulars are given in Table XVI.
General
PART VII
BIRTHS AND DEATHS REGISTRY
69. The registration of births and deaths is compulsory under the Births and Deaths Registration Ordinance (Cap. 174). During the year, facilities for registration were further improved by the transfer on 1st November, 1960 of the Eastern District Birth Registry from its rather cramped accommodation in the Eastern Public Dispensary to a bright modern office in the Causeway Bay Magistracy Building, by the opening on 7th June, 1960 of a full time District Birth Registry in the Hongkong & Shanghai Bank's new building at Tsuen Wan, and by the formation in May and September of two additional mobile teams to deal with applications for the post-registration of births in the New Territories. Besides the General Register Office which is situated on the second floor of Li Po Chun Chambers, 92-97, Connaught Road
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