"The German element is strongly and properly represented in Allentown, and in Lehigh county generally, where the German language has retained its greatest purity, and so strong is this element, that in the city itself there are but few persons who speak English exclusively. An evidence of this is found in the fact that in seventy of the eighty Christian congregations in the county, some of which are over one hundred years old, Divine service is conducted in the German language. Allentown has seven German churches: (two Lutheran, one Reformed, two Methodist, one United Brethren, and one Catholic); and nine German journals, of which are published weekly--_Der Unabhängige_[1] _Republikaner_ (fifty-nine years old), _Der Friedensbote_ (fifty-seven years old), _Der Lecha County Patriot_ (forty-three years old), _Der Weltbote_ (fifteen years old, with 12,000 subscribers), and _Die Lutherische Zeitschrift_. The _Stadt-und Land-Bote_ is a daily, the _Jugendfreund_ semi-monthly, with twenty thousand subscribers; and Pastor Brobst's _Theologische Monatshefte_ is monthly. Since the beginning of the year 1869, the German language has been taught in the public schools."[2] The Reading _Adler_ is in its seventy-fourth, and the Lancaster _Volksfreund_ in its sixty-second year.--Dec. 1869. The convenient quarto German almanacs (with a printed page of about five and a half by seven and a half inches in size), were preferred to the duodecimo English almanacs, even among the non-Germans, until the appearance of English almanacs in the German format about the year 1825. The early settlers were extensive purchasers and occupiers of land, and being thus widely scattered, and having but few good roads, the uniformity of the language is greater than might have been supposed possible. These people seldom became merchants and lawyers, and in the list of attorneys admitted in Lancaster County, commencing with the year 1729, the names are English until 1769, when _Hubley_ and _Weitzel_ appear. From 1793 to 1804, of fifty-two names, three are German; from 1825 to 1835, twenty-four names give _Reigart_ and _Long_ (the latter anglicised). After 1860 the proportion is greater, for among the nine attorneys admitted in 1866, we find the German names of _Urich_, _Loop_, _Kauffman_, _Reinoehl_, _Seltzer_, and _Miller_. At the first school I attended as a child, there were but three English family names, and in the playground, English and German games were practised, such as 'blumsak' (G. plumpsack), 'Prisoner's base,' and 'Hink'l-wai[3] was graabscht du do?' which was never played with the colloquy translated.