As the house seemed to be empty, I inquired at the nearest store what was the reason for this outburst. The storekeeper told me it was done by the neighbours as a welcome to a newly-married couple coming home from their honeymoon on the morrow. It was a custom to do it, but this was nothing to the way they "tied them up" sometimes.
"Won't they be distressed?"
"Oh no, they'll like it."
"Are the neighbours envious, or what is it?" I asked. The storekeeper began to sing, "Snookeyookums."
"All night long the neighbours shout
(to the newly-married couple whose kisses they hear)
"'Cut it out, cut it out, cut it out.'"
On Independence Day I saw a crowd of roughs assailing a Russian girl who had gone into the water to bathe, dressed in what we in Britain would call "full regulation costume." The crowd cried shame on her because she was not wearing stockings and a skirt in addition to knickers and vest.