Are We a Declining Race ? 



principle of chastity, for they were known as 

 very hardy races. They wore very scant cloth- 

 ing, their arms and legs being generally bare. 

 Gibbon says : " The barbarians of Germany, 

 still faithful to the maxims of their ancestors, 

 abhorred the confinement of walls, to which 

 they applied the odious names of prisons and 

 sepulchres." In the laws of Theodoric, the 

 German, adultery was a capital crime, and 

 the seducer of a virgin was forced to marry 

 her, also to endow her with a fifth of his 

 estate. With the Goths also, adultery was a 

 capital crime, and irremissibly punished with 

 death. Horace greatly commended the chastity 

 of their women. Dean Milman quoting Salvian 

 says : " The Goths are treacherous but con- 

 tinent." 



These hardy people originated in Scandi- 

 navia, and wore a garment of various colours 

 reaching to the knee ; their thighs, knees and legs 

 were without any covering, their sleeves only 

 covered the tops af their arms. Fancy us going 

 outside the door without a top-coat on ! 



" The Saxons are savagely cruel, but remark- 

 able for chastity." (Milman. Vol. I., 383). 



" There is, however, one feature in the manners 

 of the ancient Saxons worthy of notice the 

 equality of rank which they allowed to women, 

 and the chastity for which they were remark- 

 able. . . . The severest penalties were 

 attached to every violation of female purity. 

 Not only was adultery punished with a most 

 horrid death, and a similar punishment awarded 

 to the seducer, but even those familiarities be- 



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