“Honesty may be regarded as a leading feature in the character of the Tyrolese,” says Alison.… “In no part of the world are the domestic or conjugal duties more strictly or faithfully observed, and in none do the parish priests exercise a stricter or more conscientious control over their flocks.… Perhaps the most remarkable feature in the character of the Tyrolese is their uniform piety—a feeling which is nowhere so universally diffused as among their sequestered valleys.… On Sunday the _whole people_ flock to church in their neatest and gayest attire; and so great is the number who thus frequent these places of worship that it is not unfrequent to see the peasants kneeling on the turf in the church-yard where Mass is performed, from being unable to find a place within its walls. Regularly in the evening prayers are read in every family; and the traveller who passes through the villages at the hour of twilight often sees through their latticed windows the young and the old kneeling together round their humble fire, or is warned of his approach to human habitation by hearing their evening hymns stealing through the silence and solitude of the forest.… In one great virtue the peasants in this country (in common, it must be owned, with most Catholic states) are particularly worthy of imitation. The virtue of _charity_, which is too much overlooked in many Protestant kingdoms, is there practised to the greatest degree and by all classes of people.”[12]