462 



THE LIVING RACES OF MANKIND 



Photo by the Photockroine Co.] 



A SWISS GIRL IN BRIDAL DRESS. 



[London. 



Domestic life in Germany is apt to 

 strike the stranger as decorous, but distinctly 

 dull. Women are by no means badly edu- 

 cated, but they are not expected to share 

 the intellectual or business interests of their 

 husbands. Their proper sphere, even in 

 the upper classes, is supposed to be the 

 kitchen and the nursery. Many are expected 

 to attend a church regularly; hence the 

 saying one so often hears in Germany, 

 " Kirche, Kinder, Kiiche," which means 

 " Church, children, and kitchen." Although, 

 on the whole, German wives are well treated 

 by their husbands, they are often little better 

 than a kind of upper servants. A German 

 girl is not expected to have a higher 

 ambition in life than to become in due 

 time an efficient Hausfrau. The Germans 

 are fond of amusement, although their 

 pleasures are of a mild nature. In youth, 

 however, they are much given to fencing 

 and other gymnastic exercises. Even duelling 

 is encouraged in the highest quarters, being 

 still a noticeable feature of student life. The 

 present Emperor, however, has checked it to 

 some extent among the officers of the army, 

 owing to the scandalous frequency with which 

 these "affairs of honour" occurred. In 

 holiday time they throng the public gardens 

 and listen to the excellent military bands for 

 which Germany is famous. Here they will 

 sit for hours at the small tables which hold 

 the ever-replenished glass of Munich, Pilsener, 

 or other beer, and smoke cigars made in 

 Germany, and therefore inexpensive. 



It is reckoned that about 63 per cent, 

 of the inhabitants of the empire are Protes- 

 tants and 36 per cent. Koman Catholics, 



while the remainder are by creed and extraction mostly Jews. 



SWITZERLAND. 



THE union of the Swiss people as a nation is entirely political, and in an ethnographical 

 sense there is no such thing as a Swiss nation. Their country has an area of only 15,976 

 square miles, and in the year 1898 the census showed a population of rather less than 3,120,000. 

 In this small compass, however, three if not four distinct nationalities have their home. In 

 the valley of the Upper Rhine as far as Basle (or Bale), and in the valley of the Upper 

 Rhone as far south as Sitten, the people are of Teutonic stock, speaking a German patois. 

 They are sprung from the Alemanni, one of the Teutonic tribes which descended on the Roman 

 Empire. The German Swiss are by far the most numerous, being about three-sevenths of 

 the entire population. Part of the Upper Rhine Valley and the slopes of the Jura in the 

 west are known as French Switzerland. Here the people are descended from the Burgundians. 



