26 Broughton Gifford. 



respectively. During the latter ten years 5 males were under age, 

 and 13 females ; or 2174 and 5652 per cent, respectively. Taking 

 all the 122 marriages, few are between those whose united ages 

 make up 50 years. Thus we add another proof to the conclusion 

 derived from general enumerations elsewhere, as to the early age 

 of marriage in the agricultural districts. How can it he otherwise ? 

 A young man at 20 earns his 9 or 10 shillings a week, and he 

 never will earn any more. Why should he not marry at once, and 

 make his young woman happy ? If he cannot support his wife and 

 family, from sickness or other cause, there is the Parish bound to 

 do so for him. Such is the reasoning of our youths, who have 

 never studied political economy. As ratepayers, we grumble ; as 

 moralists, we acquiesce. 



The marriage ceremony is conducted about here in a manner 

 which is not pleasing. It is a ceremony and no more. There are 

 no pretty bridal customs, no strewing of flowers, no favours, no 

 stocking or slipper-throwing, no nosegays. That we retain the 

 ring is owing to the requirement of the rubric (they dispense with 

 it at the Registrar's office), and we may thank the milliners for the 

 artificial orange blossoms. Nobody comes to church, but the bride 

 and bridegroom, walking down the "street," arm in arm, followed by 

 one or two couples more, who are " keeping company." Parents 

 never think of gracing the union with their presence. On one 

 occasion indeed the bridegroom (but he came from South Wilts) 

 did observe an ancient custom. He was married on a Sunday, 

 during service, and gave his bride the nuptial kiss in church before 

 the whole congregation ; following therein the rubric of the manual 

 for the diocese of Sarum, " Surgant ambo, sponsus et sponsa, et 

 accipiat sponsus pacem (the pax) a sacerdote, et ferat sponsa? [sic], 

 osculans earn, et neminem aliam, nee ipse nee ipsa." 



The same remark applies to games and amusements ; we have 

 next to none. There were indeed, ten years since, the remains of 

 a Michaelmas revel. Bushes were hung out at unlicensed houses, 

 and the whole thing had degenerated into a mere drinking bout. 

 The excise officers and the police extinguished it. Bull-baiting 

 lingered here longer than elsewhere : there is a tradition of it on 



