of Edinhurgli, Session 1883 - 84 . 
625 
the accompanying festivities are frequently continued for several 
days, a marriage celebrated on the last day of the year enables the 
bride and bridegroom to enjoy a longer honeymoon than at any 
other season. The same results are observed, on a smaller scale, 
in connection with most of the great annual fairs in Glasgow, 
Dundee, and other large towns. Thus, in Glasgow, the average 
weekly number of marriages is more than quadrupled during the 
week of the yearly fair in the month of July. 
The comparative percentages of marriages in town and country 
districts respectively must also be referred to. The registrars of 
the latter frequently allude to the practice of persons whose banns 
have been proclaimed in the country proceeding to some large town 
to be married ; and as the event is recorded where it takes place, 
the marriage register of the parish of domicile is thus deprived of 
a good many entries. Per contra, however, it occasionally happens 
that denizens of the town resort to the country for the completion of 
the nuptial tie. During the Glasgow Tair holidays, for example, 
many young couples, whose banns have been previously published 
in Glasgow, go “ down the water,” as it is termed, for the purpose 
of being married. 
Several of the northern registrars have referred to the cost of 
rural iveddmgs as one of the causes of the ceremony taking place 
the following table, applicable to the year 1862, and extracted from the Report 
on the Scottish Census of 1871, that the percentage of marriages celebrated in 
England and Scotland respectively on Sunday was 32 and 0’9, while those 
celebrated on Friday amounted to 2 and 43 ’3 per cent. 
Number and Proportion of Marriages in Scotland and England during each 
day of the week for the year 1862, deducting Marriages in Scotland on the 
last day of the year. 
Days of Week. 
Scotland. 
England. 
No, of Marriages. 
Percentage to total 
Marriages. 
Percentage to total 
Marriages, 
Sunday, 
184 
0-9 
32 
Monday, . 
2501 
12-9 
21 
Tuesday, . 
3418 
17-6 
11 
Wednesday, 
1329 
6-8 
8 
Thursday, 
2323 
12-0 
9 
Friday, 
8407 
43*3 
2 
Saturday, . 
1270 
6-5 
17 
2 s 
VOL. XII. 
