Show customs ef of the orientals inc the birth of a boy all weddings in turkey among the turk turks whether in province provinces or in cilie cities are arranged by old women and are complicated tedious afra affairs irs the bridegroom bold holds fete several days at hie his home for his besmen men friends says a writer in the brooklyn Jr magazine agazine and the prospective bride at borne home with her young friend friends s girls of course the night before the wedding the married women of her bar acquaintance come and eat the married homans womans wo mans dinner with her which consists principally i as sam weller would say ay of a a warry of leg of mutton and trimmings the next d day SLY the bride is taken to the bridegroom a bouse house in a sedan chair with a retinue of slaves carrying her wedding present presents on traya trays on their heads covered with colored tarlatan the procession is come some times quite im imposing imp the brides relatives are a alo so there in the new now harem until nightfall and they retire to the their r home homes leaving the bride sitting on a sort of throne veiled the bridegroom is then admitted and he is to throw him self at the brides feet and offer her his wedding present of some handsome so me jewelry and bee ber her to raise her veil and strike him blind by her beauty Pome sometimes times he is struck dumb by her ugliness for he be never looks at her face fade until un til after sifter the wedding when a babe is born torn to any house there is great rejoicing if it be a boy lei leis s if a girl the wife is proud for a while but turkish conlen are not good mothers they are too childlike child like fike themselves when a girl is born to a sultan they fire seven guns when a boy twenty one the boys die ear early ly the girls are more apt t to 0 live this is supposed posed to be a divine interpose inter lion tion of providence to prevent too many clai claimants mautz to the throna throne babies are dressed like mummies mummies in swaddling waddling clothes for six months t then hen the ibe boys are put in trousers sometimes in genera generals 6 or colonels uniforms regularly made when th the e sultan takes a wife no ceremony is considered ne cesary y more than to present his bride the new sultan inherits all the widows and slaves of his predecessor and every year of his reign at the feast of the Rama bakazan Ba mazan be he re ceides ceides a new one from his mother andi and takes any girl or woman to bis his harem who happens to strike bis his fancy clayes who become mothers are instantly promoted to the rank of sultana six months before the feast feut of ramazan the valide sultana orders that all the young oung candidates be brought to ker her and she chooses chouses fifteen and sometimes more of of the jot lot these are immediately put under diet and training and at the beginning of the great feast she again chooses and this his time the choice is final at the evening of the appointed da day 7 the sultan retiring finds his new bride standing nude with folded bands hands and lowered eyes at t the foot of his bed after be he has retired she must lift the bedclothes atthe at the foot and crawl into bed in in that way as aea a sign of subjection girls arri arrive veat at legal majority at 9 years of age and are tire frequently married at 10 children of 12 M 13 are often been seen with babies of the their irown own they are old at twenty five beyond a respect for age which they contrive to inspire by tooth and nail mail among other wives younger than thin they their lives are not hap happy y still they are provided for altae and as long as a man lives he be feeds bis his family one and all alike |