In this manner the wants of these men multiply in an inordinate degree, their minds and tastes are debased, and all their earnings soon cease to suffice for even the most indispensable articles of food and raiment. Those who break the Lord's day, though they seem to earn better wages, look wretched, and have rarely a decent coat to their backs. If the weather, or some other unforeseen cause, prevents them from working, they resort to the tavern and spend there their Sunday gains. It is notorious that exactly in those work-shops where the Sunday is habitually ignored, the hands are the most dissipated and shiftless. Even from a purely material stand-point the non-observance of Sunday is therefore a fearful social evil which has unhappily made serious progress, even in the rural districts, and especially in those immediately surrounding Paris. This pagan system of civil legislation interferes very materially with the religious life. The French code robs the father of nearly all authority over his grown children; for instance, a son eighteen years of age may legally mortgage half the property which he is to inherit, even though it may have been earned by the parent's personal industry. Husband and wife hold their property separately, neither being liable for the debts of the other. In this way the members of the same family are invested with such widely diverging rights that they can have no interests in common. The effect of this arrangement upon the domestic relations, upon the harmony, unity, and morals of the family will be readily conceived. It is therefore to be regarded at once as a wonder and a proof of the power of the Catholic Church that there should still exist so many exemplary households in France.