periods. The general office is bright and spacious with ample waiting accommodation. It contains specially designed notice boards with folding leaves capable of holding up to 3,000 notices of marriage at one time. There is also a powder room in which the bride and her attendants may tidy up and make last minute adjustments to their dresses.
77. Prior to its official opening on 19th March 1962, the Marriage Registry was inspected by His Excellency the Governor along with Lady BLACK and Miss Barbara BLACK in the course of their tour of the City Hall after its opening on 2nd March 1962. There was also a Press pre-view on 14th March, and the Registry was open for inspection by the public on the afternoons of 15th and 16th March. The first marriage in the new Marriage Room was performed by the Registrar General at 10 a.m. on the morning of Monday, 19th March 1962. The distinction of being the first couple married there fell to Mr. CHOI Tung-ching and Miss Ho Woon-yee, a photograph of whom, taken after the ceremony, appears in this Report.
Comparison with Previous Years
78. Table XX 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, but the increase in 1961-62 was the lowest since 1958-59, Indeed, if one deducts the increase in the number of couples who were already married by customary marriage, the net increase of 'new' marriages in 1961-62 was only 335, a disappointing total considering that the expanded Kowloon Registry, the Causeway Bay Registry and all the part-time Registries had been in operation for a full year instead of only part of the year as in 1960-61. It is evident therefore that there remains much to be done in the way of instruction and persuasion before the majority of the poorer people are won over to Registry marriages. Some encouragement may nevertheless be derived from the fact that the marriages in the New Territories part-time Registries rose by as many as 133 to 350.
Fees
79. The fees collected totalled the record figure of $140,608, $7,938 more than in 1960-61. Particulars are given in Table XXI.
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