It must not be forgotten that shoes used to be thrown after anybody when he or she was starting on a journey, which in old days was a risky business, and Ben Jonson wrote, "Would I had Kemp's shoes to throw after you." This has been interpreted as meaning that Kemp was a lucky individual, and that something of him and his good fortune remained in his shoes. Summing up his remarks, Mr. Crombie says with regard to throwing shoes at weddings that by doing so "we should be doing for the young couple, in a more pleasant way, exactly the same as the relatives of the Galla bride did for her when they anointed her from top to toe with bullock's blood. We should be doing for them with shoes what our Aryan ancestors did for their cattle with the sacred parna rod, and what the herdsmen of Sweden and The Mark do to this day, when on the 1st of May they watch on which branch of the mountain ash the sun first strikes, and then, cutting it down, beat the yearling heifers with it on the loins and haunches, repeating at each stroke a verse in which they pray that as sap comes into the birch so may milk fill the cow's udder. We should be doing with shoes what the Romans did in ancient Rome at the festival of the Lupercalia, when the boys, armed with strips of the skin of the slaughtered goats, used to rush through the city striking all they met, and where women, particularly those who desired to be made fruitful, placed themselves naked in the way, and received the blows of the Luperci on their palms." At a wedding sometimes the priest's vestments play a part. It is customary in some continental countries for the priest to wrap the hands of the bride and bridegroom in his stole, and even in some of our English churches the contracting parties are instructed to take hold of the stole by the officiating clergyman. We might mention that in many countries the bridal dresses are very beautiful, and are often survivals of very old-fashioned costumes. The Norwegian bridal dress is an instance of this. The wearing of a bridal crown is also a custom in Scandinavia, where it is said that every parish possesses its special crown which is the property of the church, but the use of it is only sanctioned when the bride bears an irreproachable character. The wearing of orange blossom has apparently the same meaning, and it may be mentioned that on funeral monuments or brasses the wearing of a garland by the effigy of a girl means that she died a virgin. XIX MOURNING COLOURS ASSOCIATED WITH MOURNING--WIDOWS' WEEDS--PERENNIAL MOURNING