_Wedding Divination._--Being lately present on the occasion of a wedding at
a town in the East Riding of Yorkshire, I was witness to the following
custom, which seems to take rank as a genuine scrap of folk-lore. On the
bride alighting from her carriage at her father's door, a plate covered
with morsels of bride's cake was flung from a window of the second story
upon the heads of the crowd congregated in the street below; and the
divination, I was told, consists in observing the fate which attends its
downfall. If it reach the ground in safety, without being broken, the omen
is a most _un_favourable one. If on the other hand, the plate be shattered
to pieces (and the more the better), the auspices are looked upon as most
happy.