long since dropped, grin defiance on the passer by, who dares to harbor a thought of improvement or repair. The owner is content to _live_ as his ancestors lived, but would like to _die_ a little richer. The patrimony, amassed by the hand of unceasing toil, is religiously bequeathed from sire to son, together with the peculiar habits of thought and the superstitious sentiments of an age gone by. In many cases no education has been suffered to weaken or invade, and in others has been so slight as only to harmonize the mind with the general character of the place, which at best seems to belong more to a past generation than to the present. From these causes, things which better tutored minds scout with scorn, in the one case, are held as true as matters of religious belief, and in the other are only doubted, not disbelieved. In fact so thoroughly does superstition, and the gross follies which an intercourse with the world and education always dispel, prevail, that many of the inhabitants can tell you to a nicety when there will be a change of weather, by the belligerent attitude in which the moon turns up her horns when she grows restive, and that there will be company when the cat licks her paws, when a fork sticks up in the floor, or when the old cock brushes up his feathers and crows in the door-way. There are others who go still deeper into mysteries of this sort, and can predict to you a birth, a marriage, or a death, by the kinks in a cow’s tail; but as they are entirely beyond our depth, and seem to have this knowledge all to themselves, it may be well not to disturb them in their profound wisdom. Nevertheless, let no young man, who values the affections of any fair Dutch damsel in Germantown, venture to present her with a pair of scissors, unless he wishes to _cut_ the sentimental cord that binds her to him. Thus much we feel in duty bound to record as a warning to young gentlemen, as many a man has lost the confidence and affections of his lady love in consequence of less matters than a pair of scissors. It might be expected that a village so contiguous to a great city, would soon lose these distinctive marks of character, and that the extravagance, follies and vices of the metropolis would be generally imitated. Not so, however. With very little exception, the place is as entirely distinct as if it were miles in the interior. The moral mantle of Germanism seems to hang like a cloud over the place, and, blended with the superstition of the portion of inhabitants spoken of, there is a high-toned morality so imbedded in the hearts of the people, that honesty and a strict regard to truth, next to making money and keeping it, may be considered the great texts by which they live.