nity and who
the leisure for a meticulous toilet. One must not forget that regular
and systematic cleansing of the person is a very modern fashion. As
late as the early part of the nineteenth century, tooth-brushes were
not allowed in certain French convents, being looked upon as a luxury.
Cleanliness was not very common a century and a half ago in any
country. In 1770 the publication of Monsieur Perrel's "Pogonotomie, ou
1'Art d'apprendre a se raser soi-meme," created a sensation among
fashionable people, and enthusiasts studied self-shaving. The author
of "Lois de la Galanterie" in 1640 writes: "Every day one should take
pains to wash one's hands, and one should also wash one's face almost
as often!"

The copious streams of hot and cold water, turned into a porcelain tub
at any time of the day or night; the brushes, and soaps, and towels,
and toilet waters, and powders of our day were quite unknown to our
not far-off ancestors. The oft-repeated and minute ablutions of our
day are almost as modern as bicycles, and not as ancient as the
railways. The Germans are only a little behind the rest of us in this
soap and water cult, that is all.

In the streets and public conveyances of the cities, in the beer-gardens
and restaurants in the country, in the summer and winter
resorts from the Baltic to the Black Forest, from the Rhine to
Bohemia, it is ever the same. They seat themselves at table first, and
have their napkins hanging below their Adam's apples before their
women are in their chairs; hundreds of times have I seen their women
arrive at table after they were seated, not a dozen times have I seen
their masters rise to receive them; their preference for the inside of
the sidewalk is practically universal; even officers in uniform, but
this is of rare occurrence, will take their places in a railway
carriage, all of them smoking, where two ladies are sitting, and wait
till requested before throwing their cigars away, and what cigars! and
then by smiles and innuendoes make the ladies so uncomfortable that
they are driven from the carriage. Even eleven hundred years ago the
German woman had rather a rough time of it. Charlemagne had nine
wives, but he seems to have been unduly uxorious or unwearying in his
infatuations. He made the wife travel with him, and all nine of them
died, worn out by travel and hardship. There is a constancy of
companionship which is deadly.

The inconveniences and discomfort of going about al