Even royalty itself must bow to the behests of old custom, as well as common mortals. When the Duke and Duchess of Albany left Windsor, while they were still within the private grounds, the bridegroom’s three brothers and Princess Louise and Princess Beatrice ran across a part of the lawn enclosed within a bend of the drive, each armed with a number of old shoes, with which they pelted the “happy pair.” The Duke of Albany returned the fire from the carriage with the ammunition supplied him by his friendly assailants, causing the heartiest laughter by a well-directed shot at the Duke of Edinburgh.
It was always reckoned a good omen if the sun shone on a couple when coming out of church. Hence the saying: “Happy is the bride that the sun shines on.”
Every one knows, if not from experience, at least by observation, what self-consciousness dwells in a newly married pair--what pains they take to appear like old married folk, and what awkward attempts they make to assume the _dégagé_ air of ordinary travellers. As touching this feature of the subject, I one day saw a carriage driven past me, at which every one stopped to look, and stare in a way to attract general attention, and after looking, gave a broad grin. The reason was apparent. On the back of the carriage was hung a large placard, labelled “Just Married.” Several old shoes, besides some long streamers of cheap cotton cloth, were dangling from the trunks behind. When the carriage, thus decorated, drew up at the station, followed by a hooting crowd of street urchins, it was greeted with roars of laughter by the throng of idlers in waiting, while the unconscious cause of it all first learned on alighting what a sensation they had so unwittingly created.
The custom of throwing rice over a bride, as an emblem of fruitfulness, also is very old, though in England it was originally wheat that was cast upon her head. The poet Herrick says to the bride,
“While some repeat Your praise and bless you sprinkling you with wheat.”
All the sentiment of this pretty and very significant custom is in danger of being killed by excess on the part of the performers, who so often overdo the matter as to render themselves supremely ridiculous, and the bride very uncomfortable, to say the least. To scatter rice, as if one were sowing it by the acre, when a handful would amply fulfil all the requirements of the custom, is something as if an officiating clergyman should pour a pailful of water on an infant’s head, instead of sprinkling it, at a baptism.