Among the wealthier classes of Wales, certain joyous and genial wedding customs prevail, such as are common in most parts of the British isles, but which do not reappear in the new world across the Atlantic,--a fact by which American life is a heavy loser, in my opinion. When the Rector of Merthyr's daughter (to use the form of speech common) was married, a few months since, the tenants of the estate erected arches of evergreens over the roads, and adorned their houses with garlands, and for two or three days the estate was a scene of festivity, ending with the distribution of meat to the poor of the parish. Such festivities and such decorations are common on the estates of the country gentry not only, but in the towns as well. At Tenby, when the High Sheriff's son was married to the Rector of Tenby's daughter, in 1877, garlands of flowers were hung across the High Street, bearing pleasant mottoes, while flags and banners fluttered from house-tops in all directions. Children strewed flowers in the bride's path as she came out of church, while the bells in the steeple chimed a merry peal, and a park of miniature artillery boomed from the pier-head. This custom of children strewing flowers in the path of the new-made bride is common; so also is that of throwing showers of rice after the wedded pair, by way of expressing good wishes--a pleasanter thing to be thrown under these circumstances than the old shoes of tradition. However, since fashion has taken up the custom of rice-throwing and shoe-throwing, the shoes have become satin slippers.