Modern society is agreed, with respect to many curious old customs, to view them as the peculiar possession of ignorance. It is very instructive to note, in this connection, how blandly we accept some of the most superstitious of these usages, with tacit approval, and permit them to govern our conduct. In every civilised community, in every enlightened land on earth, there are many men and women to whom this remark applies, who would deem themselves shamefully insulted should you doubt their intelligence and culture. Men and women who 'smile superior' at the idea of Luther hurling inkstands at the devil, or at the Welsh peasant who thinks a pig can see the wind, will themselves avoid beginning a journey on a Friday, view as ominous a rainy wedding-day, throw an old slipper after a bride for luck, observe with interest the portents of their nightly dreams, shun seeing the new moon over the left shoulder, throw a pinch of salt over the same member when the salt-cellar is upset, tie a red string about the neck to cure nose-bleed, and believe in the antics of the modern spiritualistic 'control.' Superstition, however, they leave to the ignorant! The examples of every-day fetichism here cited are familiar to us, not specially among the Welsh, but among the English also, and the people of the United States--who, I may again observe, are no doubt as a people uncommonly free from superstition, in comparison with the older nations of the earth; but modesty is a very becoming wear for us all, in examining into other people's superstitions. Aside from their scientific interest, there is a charm about many of the quaint customs of the Welsh, which speaks eloquently to most hearts. They are the offspring of ignorance, true, but they touch the 'good old times' of the poet and the romancer, when the conditions of life were less harsh than now. So we love to think. As a matter of scientific truth, this idea is itself, alas! but a superstition. This world has probably never been so fair a place to live in, life never so free from harsh conditions, as now; and as time goes on, there can be no doubt the improving process will continue. The true halcyon days of man are to be looked for in the future--not in the past; but with that future we shall have no mortal part. II. In treating of customs, no other classification is needful than their arrangement in orderly sequence in two divisions: first, those which pertain to certain days and seasons; second, those relating to the most conspicuous events in common human life, courtship, marriage, and death.