Of the civil marriage ceremonies there are three classes, not at all determined by the social positions of the contracting parties, but by the time required to tie the knot and the corresponding fee imposed. A first-class marriage may be performed on any day of the week, but the second and third-class marriages are conducted upon certain days, the different members of the City Council officiating by turns. Each of the second-class ceremonies is performed separately and the ritual repeated for each couple. A number of third-class marriages, however, may be conducted at one and the same time, and practically at club rates. The ceremony in this case is not altogether an impressive one but it serves its purpose at a cheaper price and is more quickly over with. The methods of procedure are somewhat as follows: Brides and bridegrooms to be, friends, relatives, and witnesses are ushered into a large room in the city hall. The member of Council in charge takes his position upon the dais, and the clerk calls the names of the contracting parties. They arise to acknowledge their identities, which are duly vouched for by the various witnesses in each case. The officer then proceeds to expatiate upon the duties of man and wife and upon the holy bonds of matrimony, directing his awesome remarks to the standing couples. In closing, he puts forth the question as to whether each, in spite of all he has said, will take the other for better or for worse, abide by the laws, and love and cherish each other until death doth part, so help them. A loud and enthusiastic chorus in the affirmative is followed by a banging of the table right soundly with the official gavel, and the whole company is forthwith pronounced man and wife. Of course it is assumed by the conspirators which maiden the functionary has pronounced the wife of which young man; at all events, there is nothing on record about the wrong husband decamping with the wrong wife. Order comes out of apparent chaos and, as the story books read, they all live happily ever after. The civil ceremony is all that is required by law, but, possibly to moisten the already well executed knot in the tie that binds, many couples later undergo the religious ceremony in the church. The familiar wedding ring figures in neither the religious nor the civil ceremony. Each member of an engaged couple presents the other with a plain gold ring at the time of “plighting their troth,” as we observe in the novels, which is worn upon the third finger of the left hand until after the marriage, when it becomes a wedding ring and is transferred to the right hand.