56 Hattie Plum Williams 
park where a number of boys were lounging. Recognizing the 
girl but not knowing who her companion was, the boys began 
calling after her and followed her for some distance hurling vile 
epithets at her in the German tongue. For months this girl could 
not go outside her home without submitting to this same conduct 
from the boys in the neighborhood. The viaduct which separates 
the north settlement from the city is a via dolorosa to any girl 
who leaves the path of virtue; for here the boys gather and as 
she goes back and forth to her work, they taunt and tempt her in 
truly mediaeval fashion.* 
How far the absolute parental control of matchmaking enters 
as a preventive of illegitimacy can only be conjectured, but there 
can be no question that it sometimes causes illicit relations between 
young people. Although the Russian law permits the minister to 
perform the marriage ceremony over the objection of the parents, 
the dependence of the youth upon their family, due to its patri- 
archal organization, induces them to find some way of escape 
without breaking its ties. Several instances are known in Lin- 
coln where parents objected to the choice of their child, and the 
couple checkmated them, not by elopement, as is customary in 
America, but by assuming prematurely the privileges of the mar- 
ried state. In one case the parents, upon confession of the young 
people, prepared the ordinary wedding, and concealed the facts 
from the minister until afterwards. 
Apparently this purity in the sexual relations has been the 
82. One of the most effective methods of punishment among the Russian 
Germans is “shame.” However, since the community must act in the 
capacity of “hangman,” it is a question whether more harm than good 
does not result from this primitive method of meting out justice, particu- 
larly when children are employed. An instance of this sort of punishment 
is given by a correspondent in the Dakota Freie Presse, December 27, 
1910. A man and his wife in one of the colonies were caught stealing 
provisions from a neighbor. The customary legal penalties were imposed 
upon the man; but the woman was taken to the school grounds where 
she was made to stand with a link of the stolen sausage around her neck 
and a little cooking-kettle on her arm, while the school children danced 
about her in a circle and cried, “ Wurst, Wurst,” “ Kalbas, Kalbas.” The 
woman was then led through the entire village, followed by the children 
“with ear-splitting cries.” 
182 
