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26
DOMESTIC MANNERS OF THE TRUSSIANS.
tili they appeared to glitter again with all the rieh green huesof the beetle's back—the Rhine itself shining where the beamsfeil füll upon it like a sheet of crumpled golden foil.
§2.
Modes of Cleaning, and Habits of Cleanliness andDecency.
" Cleanliness," saya Dr. Viron, the quondam Editor of theConstitutionnel, in his Memoires d\n Bourgeois, " was importedfrom England into France at the beginning of the present Cen-tury." From our own observations we should say, that noGerman voyagcr has yet introduced the British luxury intoRhineland.
A Rhenish professor, whilst discoursing to us of the differ-ence between the towns and the villages in his own land, as-sured us, that when he lived in the country he only washedhimself once a-week, and was not then dirty. " But in Cob-lenz," said he, " my hands and face I am obliged to clean onceevery day."
A better illustration, however, of the ideas populär amongPrussians concerning the proprieties of the toilet is aiforded bythe following aneedote:—Two German Professors were oncespeculating concerning some anomalies in the Physiologie duGoüt. " How is it," inquired one of the " Philosophs" "thatwe eat hares and not foxes ?" " Oh! it is merely habit,"answered the other; " you might as well ask the reason whywe wash our hands and not our feet!"
After this it is, of course, idle to teil the reader that such