p or oysters, which constitutes the weight of the peasantry in the
social and political scale.

In the cultivated world each individual has his style of speaking and
writing. But among the peasantry it is the race, the district, the
province, that has its style--namely, its dialect, its phraseology, its
proverbs, and its songs, which belong alike to the entire body of the
people. This provincial style of the peasant is again, like his
_physique_, a remnant of history, to which he clings with the utmost
tenacity. In certain parts of Hungary there are still descendants of
German colonists of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, who go about
the country as reapers, retaining their old Saxon songs and manners,
while the more cultivated German emigrants in a very short time forget
their own language, and speak Hungarian. Another remarkable case of the
same kind is that of the Wends, a Slavonic race settled in Lusatia, whose
numbers amount to 200,000, living either scattered among the German
population or in separate parishes. They have their own schools and
churches, and are taught in the Slavonic tongue. The Catholics among
them are rigid adherents of the Pope; the Protestants not less rigid
adherents of Luther, or _Doctor_ Luther, as they are particular in
calling him--a custom which a hundred years ago was universal in
Protestant Germany. The Wend clings tenaciously to the usages of his
Church, and perhaps this may contribute not a little to the purity in
which he maintains the specific characteristics of his race. German
education, German law and government, service in the standing army, and
many other agencies, are in antagonism to his national exclusiveness; but
the _wives_ and _mothers_ here, as elsewhere, are a conservative
influence, and the habits temporarily laid aside in the outer world are
recovered by the fireside. The Wends form several stout regiments in the
Saxon army; they are sought far and wide, as diligent and honest
servants; and many a weakly Dresden or Leipzig child becomes thriving
under the care of a Wendish nurse. In their villages they have the air
and habits of genuine sturdy peasants, and all their customs indicate
that they have been from the first an agricultural people. For example,
they have traditional modes of treating their domestic animals. Each cow
has its own name, generally chosen carefully, so as to express the
special qualities of the animal; and all important family eve