To this it has been objected that, the number of children born out of wedlock in Germany, is infinitely greater than in England. Thus, in the great city of Prague, more than a third of the children born annually are illegitimate. But mistresses may be virtuous without being married—and they may be married without being virtuous. In many countries marriage is only a civil, and not a religious rite. The neglect of that ceremony, therefore, _in such countries_, involves neither sin, nor crime, nor disgrace. The slender _liaison_ of affection is often stronger and more durable than the massive chains of matrimony. The frequency of these _liaisons_, therefore, is to be attributed to the influence of public sentiment, rather than to depravity of the female heart. The facilities, indeed, of effecting divorce in many Protestant States of Germany render the tie of marriage little more than a nominal bond that can be conveniently cancelled, when passions cool, tempers clash, or interests predominate! 13. _Morality._—Although there can scarcely be genuine RELIGION without morality; yet there may be great display of MORALITY without religion. Germany affords a proof and illustration. In no other country is there less of RELIGION—in none is there less of CRIME. The apparent paradox is easily solved. Crime is punishable by the laws of man, in this world;—irreligion is punishable by the laws of God, in another. In a country where little or no religion prevails, and consequently where there is little or no belief in future rewards and punishments, it may readily be supposed that the fear of the magistrate is much more efficient than the fear of the Lord. 14. _Socialism._—Smoking is not so sociable an affair in Faderland as in some other countries. In this respect, indulgence in tobacco presents a great contrast to that in tea. If you visit a cigar divan in London, or an estaminet in Paris, you will find “the flow of soul,” if not the “feast of reason,” in conjunction with the fumes of the “cursed weed.” Not so beyond the Rhine. The German shrinks within the cloudy atmosphere of his pipe, like a snail within its shell, and there remains imperturbable, immoveable, and insensible to the external world. Meanwhile the soul retires to some remote nook or corner of the brain—probably the pineal gland—and there taking its metaphysical siesta, dreams of all imaginable and unimaginable things! This appears to be the real explanation of the idealism, mysticism, and transcendentalism of the German character.