"Jokes" at Weddings.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 18 November 1913, Page 4

"Jokes" at Weddings.

It is an old Welsh custom to stretch a rope across the path of a newly-married couple as they leave the church. The idea is of course to blackmail the unfortunate bridegroom out of "luck money." This silly custom caused a nasty accident near Bristol last winter. The couple left the church, not in a carriage, but a car. The car ran into the rope and snapped it, an done end flew back and caught a woman who was passing by, throwing her down heavily, and damaging her so badly that she had to be taken to the hospital. _

Olio might imagine Unit an accident of this kind would have been enough to have put an end to such stupidity, yet only recently three Welsh colliers were run in for playing a similar trick. They wore had up at Bargoed Police Court, and a constable giving evidence, said that the rope was a wire one, and was tightly stretcheel at .just the height to catch a horse's throat. The men themselves were hidden behind the hedge. They had to pay a fine of 5s apiece. TO JOKE-£27 10s. Another case of the same sort occurred in November, 1910, at Dewsbiuy, when four men actually put a chain across the road to stop a car in which a freshly

married pair wore driving" back alter the ceremony. The drive]' ran right into the chain with the result that the radilitol of the car was smashed and the car badly damaged. This proved a very costly joke, for the perpetrators thereof had to pay damages to the extent of £27 10s. Practical .jokers always seem to think that a wedding is a heavensent oportnnity to break loose. An elaborately organised hoax actually caused' the postponement of a wedding in Uermondscy a lit tiewhile ago. Owing to a family bereavement the couple had made up their minds to be married very quietly. Imagine the astonishment ol: the bride's family at receiving on the very morning of the wedding a number of letters, the writers ol which expressed their pleasure-"ai being able to accept the young couple's invitation to be present at the ceremony! No had been issued at all. Next came an undertaker's man to the bridegroom's house to measure his "deceased" ltiolher-in-la w for a coffin. A local doctor. ■ a district nurse, a fish porter Irom liillingsgate. three pianos in a van, a brewer's dray with nine barrels of beer, arrived in (puck succession. All had been summoned by letters apparently coming from the bridegroom. CROWDS TO SEE r fT[IS SIGHT.

A number ol wedding , carnages followed. Crowds μ-athereil until the street beeame impassable. •'it's all a hoax. Do go away !" begged the frantic bridegroom. "It ain't 'oats I've come to delivei. It's winkles,'' retorted the niati from Billingsgate. The climax came when a Jilue Hungarian band turned up, also men from a contractor with a large marquee. Then the unlucky bridegroom gave it all up as a bad job, and Ihe wedding was postponed fill the following Mon-d-ay. It is another unkind but favourite joke to tie a white slipper on to the wedding carriage, or otherwise make it clear to all spectators that, a bride and groom are the occupants. Not long ago a carriage drove right through Clapham bearing at the back a placard on which was inscribed in huge letters : "Ts marriage a failure. Look inside." The unfortunate occupants could not make out why everyone stared at them. In a Midland town some practical jokers filled a carriage with confetti, rice, old shoes,••anil tied white ribbons all over it. But the groom got wind of the hoax and hired a bodyguard. When the jokers tried to follow the o-nards seized their horses and refused to let thorn move. This time the joke was on the jokers. The limit in this delicate kind of humour was reached last August in TiUslmrg, the Birmingham of America. Some friends of the bride and groom tied them hand and foot, placed them in a wild animal cage on wheels, and paraded them through the streets escorted bv a band.