Wales retains several ancient customs in connection with weddings, which are elsewhere extinct. No one who has ever paid any attention to Wales and its ways can have failed to hear of that most celebrated rite the Bidding, which is, however, one of several picturesque survivals less well known to the outer world. The Bidding wedding must be spoken of as an existing custom, although it be confined to rural neighbourhoods in South Wales, and to obscure and humble folk. Those who strive to prove that all such customs are obsolete everywhere--a thankless and even ungraceful task, it seems to me--will not admit that the Bidding has been known since 1870. I have evidence, however, that in Pembroke, Cardigan, and Carmarthen shires, the custom did not cease on the date named, and there is every probability that it prevails to-day. Nothing could be of smaller importance, it is true, than the precise date on which a given custom recently ceased, since any one may revive it next year who chooses to do so. The Bidding is an invitation sent by a couple who are about to be married, soliciting the presence and donations of the neighbours on their behalf. The presents may be either sums of money or necessaries. Gifts of bread, butter, cheese, tea, sugar, and the like, are common, and sometimes articles of farming stock and household furniture. All gifts of money are recognized by a sort of promissory note, i.e., by setting down the name and residence of the donor, with the amount given; and when a like occasion arises on the part of the giver, the debt is religiously paid. The obligation is an absolute one, and its legality has actually been recognized by the Court of Great Sessions at Cardiff. The gift is even claimable under other circumstances than the donor's getting married. Another sort of contribution is the eatables and drinkables which are set before the guests; these are only repayable when required on a like occasion. The method of bidding the guests was until lately through a personage called the gwahoddwr (inviter or bidder) who tramped about the country some days beforehand, proclaiming the particulars to everybody he met. He usually recited a doggerel set of rhymes before and after the special invitation--a composition of his own, or understood to be such, for rhyme-making was a part of the talent of a popular bidder. Frequently no little humour was displayed in the bidding song. But since the printing press became the cheap and ready servant of the humblest classes, the occupation of the bidder has gradually fallen to decay; a printed circular serves in his place. At the shop of a printer in Carmarthen I procured a copy of the following bidding circular, which may be a real document, or a fictitious one: CARMARTHENSHIRE, JULY 4TH, 1862.