In Neufchatel, which, except politically, can hardly be considered part of Switzerland, a custom exists strongly similar to one in Norway, and a general usage among Lutherans, namely, that of associating before marriage. This, as Washington Irving says of the "delightful practice of bundling," is sometimes productive of unfortunate results. A lady writer says that public opinion upholds the respectability of the females if they are married time enough to legitimatize their offspring. Instances have occurred of two couples quarreling, and a mutual interchange of lovers and sweethearts taking place, the nominal fathers adopting the early-born children.[270] The frugal thrift of the great bulk of the Swiss population, their distribution over the country in small numbers, the absence of large masses of human beings pent up in the reeking atmosphere of cities, their constant and intimate association with their pastors, and the hope which every individual cherishes of purchasing with his savings a small patch of his beloved native soil as a patrimony, seem to discourage prostitution as a trade. The influence of climate, also, must not be forgotten; and Mr. Chambers, in accounting for the general good conduct of the Swiss peasantry, lays much stress on their temperate habits, the use of intoxicating liquor among them being very rare indeed. CHAPTER XXI. RUSSIA. Ancient Manners.--Peter the Great.--Eudoxia.--Empress Catharine, her dissolute Conduct and Death.--Peter's Libertinism.--Anne.-- Elizabeth.--Catharine II., infamous Career and Death.--Paul.-- Alexander I.--Countess Narishkin.--Nicholas.--Court Morality.-- Serfage.--Prostitution in St. Petersburg.--Excess of Males over Females.--Marriage Customs.--Brides' Fair.--Conjugal Relations among the Russian Nobility.--Foundling Hospital of St. Petersburg.-- Illegitimacy. The brutality, drunkenness, and debauchery which accompany semi-barbarism, and of which the old Russian manners had more than a due proportion, continued to be characteristic of the people of that country until a very recent period; while their amiability, their plastic disposition, their highly imitative faculty in the arts, and their capabilities of improvement, are noted by many writers. Just emerged from savage life as a nation, they have been moulded and welded as one mass by the steady and undeviating policy of their sovereigns, among whom we have examples of vast mental powers and towering ambition, combined with the lowest depravity and the most shameless profligacy, exemplifying in the same individual the extremes of human nature.