untry. In dress all were nearly similar, and in manners there was
small difference; exceptions there were to the general rule, but the
majority gave the tone to the establishment, and that tone was rough,
boisterous, masked by a point-blank disregard of all forbearance towards
each other or their teachers; an eager pursuit by each individual of her
own interest and convenience; and a coarse indifference to the interest
and convenience of every one else. Most of them could lie with audacity
when it appeared advantageous to do so. All understood the art of
speaking fair when a point was to be gained, and could with consummate
skill and at a moment's notice turn the cold shoulder the instant
civility ceased to be profitable. Very little open quarrelling ever took
place amongst them; but backbiting and talebearing were universal. Close
friendships were forbidden by the rules of the school, and no one girl
seemed to cultivate more regard for another than was just necessary to
secure a companion when solitude would have been irksome. They were each
and all supposed to have been reared in utter unconsciousness of vice.
The precautions used to keep them ignorant, if not innocent, were
innumerable. How was it, then, that scarcely one of those girls having
attained the age of fourteen could look a man in the face with modesty
and propriety? An air of bold, impudent flirtation, or a loose, silly
leer, was sure to answer the most ordinary glance from a masculine eye.
I know nothing of the arcana of the Roman Catholic religion, and I
am not a bigot in matters of theology, but I suspect the root of this
precocious impurity, so obvious, so general in Popish countries, is to
be found in the discipline, if not the doctrines of the Church of Rome.
I record what I have seen: these girls belonged to what are called the
respectable ranks of society; they had all been carefully brought up,
yet was the mass of them mentally depraved. So much for the general
view: now for one or two selected specimens.

The first picture is a full length of Aurelia Koslow, a German fraulein,
or rather a half-breed between German and Russian. She is eighteen years
of age, and has been sent to Brussels to finish her education; she is
of middle size, stiffly made, body long, legs short, bust much developed
but not compactly moulded, waist disproportionately compressed by an
inhumanly braced corset, dress carefully arranged, large feet tortured
into small bottines,