in petticoats. Nothing is left me— nothing
but my evening costume and the prospect of
being married !

After the insults and persecutions, minor
troubles envelope me previous to the
commencement of the wedding-day degradations.
All the responsibility of getting Moloch's
wedding-ring is thrown on me. It must not
be too thin, or Moloch, in course of years,
will wear it out; it must not be too large,
or Moloch's finger will let it drop off. If I
am self-distrustful (and how can I be otherwise,
after the severe discipline to which
I have submitted during the courtship?),
I must get at Moloch's size through the
intervention of Moloch's sister; and when
I have purchased the ring, I must be very
careful to keep it in the left-hand corner of
my right-hand waistcoat-pocket, to be ready
at a moment's notice for the clerk when he
asks me for it. Having grappled with all
these difficulties, my next piece of work is to
get my bridegroomsmen. I must be very
particular in selecting them. They must be
limited in number to the number of the
bridesmaids, one for each. They must be
young and unmarried, they should be handsome,
they cannot fail to be good-humoured,
they ought to be well dressed, their apparel
should be light and elegant, they should
wear dress coats. The bride sends white
gloves, wrapped in white paper and tied with
white ribbon, to each of the bridesmaids;
and I must do the same to each of the bride-
groomsmen. My own costume is to be " a
blue coat, light grey trousers, white satin or
silk waistcoat, ornamental tie, and white (not
primrose- coloured) gloves." Pleasant! Having
insulted and persecuted me all through
the courtship, Etiquette, on my wedding
morning, strips me even of my evening
costume, clothes me in an ornamental tie and a
white satin waistcoat, and produces me
maliciously before the public eye in the
character of an outrageous snob.

We now come to the Bridegroom's First
Degradation. It is the morning of the
marriage; and the wedding-party is setting out
for the church. Here is Etiquette's order of
the carnages:

"In the first carriage, the principal bridesmaid and
bridegroomsman."
"In the second carriage, the second bridesmaid and
the bridegroom's mother.
"Other carriages, with bridesmaids and friends, the
carriages of the bridesmaids taking precedence.
" In the last carriage the bride and her father."

Where is the Bridegroom in the
programme ? Nowhere. Not even a hackney-
cab provided for him ! How does he get to
church ? Does he run, in his ornamental
tie and white satin waistcoat, behind one of
the carriages ? Or has he a seat on the box ?
Or does he walk, accompanied by two policemen,
to prevent him from taking the only
sensible course left,— in other words, from
running away ? We hear nothing of him till
it is time for him to undergo his Second
Degradation ; and then we find him waiting
in the vestry, " where he must take
care to have arrived some time previously
to the hour appointed." Observe the
artfulness with which this second degradation
is managed ! If the bridegroom only
arrived at the church door five minutes
before the appointed hour, he would appear
in the estimable character of a rigidly punctual
man, who knew the value of time
(especially when you have an ornamental
tie, and a white satin waistcoat to put on),
and who was determined not to waste the
precious moments on his wedding-morning.
But Etiquette insists on making a contemptible
fool of him all through. The beadle, the
clerk, the pew-opener, and the general public
must all see him " kicking his heels " to no
earthly purpose, some time before the hour
when he, and the beadle, and the clerk, and
the pew-opener all know that he is wanted.
Consider the bride dashing up to the church-
door with her train of carriages ; then, look
at the forlorn snob in light grey trousers,
humbled by insult and wasted by persecution,
who has been dancing attendance
"some time previously to the hour ap-
pointed," in a lonely vestry ; and then say if
Etiquette does not punish the lords of
creation severely for the offence of getting
married !

But the offence is committed—the marriage
has been perpetrated—the wedding-party
returns to breakfast; the bridegroom, this
time, having a place in the first carriage,
because the Law has made a man of him at
last, in spite of the bride and her family.
But the persecutions are not over yet. They
assume a small, spiteful, social character, in
terror of the aforesaid Law. The breakfast
is eaten. Drink, the last refuge of the
wretched, partially revives the unhappy man
who has been kicking his heels in the vestry.
He begins to lose the galling sense of his
white satin waistcoat; he forgets that he is
personally disfigured for the occasion by an
ornamental tie. At that first moment of
comfort, vindictive Etiquette goads him on
to his legs, and insists, no matter whether he
can do it or not, on his making a speech. He
has hardly had time to breakdown,and resume
his chair before Etiquette sends the bride out
of the room to put on her travelling dress.
The door has hardly closed on her, when a
fiend (assuming the form of a bachelor friend)
attacks him with " a short address " (see
page seventy-nine), to which he is"
expected to respond." Give him time to show
his light grey trousers once more to the
company, above the horizon of the table-
cloth — give him time to break down again
—and the bride re-appears, ready for the
journey. This is the last chance the family
have, for some time to come, of making the
bridegroom uncomfortable; and Etiquette