Proposing in Holland.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 18 September 1914, Page 2

Proposing in Holland.

A. curious old custom still exists in many provinces in Holland. If a young man is in love with a girl, and wishes to ask her hand in marriage, he goes about it in the following manner.

He buys a small, sweet cake and, wrapping it up in soft paper, proceeds to the house of his inamorata. Upon his arrival he is ushered into the midst of the family circle. Without a word he walks up to the young woman he wishes to make his wife, and he lays the cake on the table before her.

If she accepts his offer, she takes up the cake and eats it. Sometimes, though Dutch, she is coquettish, and tortures the young man by turning it over and playing with it before she decides to bite it, and then enraptures him by eating it to the last crumb.

If, on the other hand, she wishes to have nothing more to do with her admirer, she quickly wraps the cake in its covering and puts it back on the table.! In this case a young man takes up the cake, satisfied with his refusal, and with a "Vaarvoal byzamen !" leaves the

The matter is then kept a profound secret by all the members of both families, and the outer world never hears of it.

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