n the garden.

This good dame, by the way, was of the opinion that 'the house gives you
the character of the wife,' and that 'the conduct of the husband depends
upon the character of the wife.' Her own 'man' was evidently an
excellent and orderly person, so I considered it a legitimate compliment
to assure her that I entirely agreed with her.

I hope, for the future of France, that she may be right. For there seems
to be a tendency here, as there certainly is in other parts of France,
to insist on sending their girls to the religious schools, even when
they allow their boys to attend the lay schools, where they are exposed
to having the 'true Republican' deputies and functionaries of the time
get up--as M. Doumer did the other day, at the opening of a new lay
school in the Aisne--and propound the doctrine that 'morals have nothing
to do with religion.'

The lay schools are attended, for example, in Anjou by 22,451 boys, and
only 3,562 girls: while the free congreganist schools are attended by
25,360 girls, and only 5,232 boys.

Adding the number together, this gives us a total of 30,592 children in
the religious, as against 26,013 in the anti-religious or irreligious
schools of one province.

If my good housewife at Thiers is right as to the influence of the
character of the women in France upon the conduct of the men, there is
hope in these figures, which I am assured pretty fairly represent the
state of things in Flanders as well as in Anjou, with the difference
that the proportion of boys attending the religious schools is probably
larger in Flanders than in Anjou. M. Doumer's doctrine that 'morals
should be taught independently of religion' certainly did not commend
itself to all his constituents. The _Journal de St.-Quentin_, commenting
upon it, plainly said, 'The verdicts of our assize courts show us every
day the result of the atheistic instructions recommended by M. Doumer
and the rest of the Masonic Brothers. The truth simply is that if some
remedy be not soon found for the situation created by these people, who
are as stupid as they are mischievous, in a few years we shall be
obliged either to decuple the gendarmerie, or to allow every citizen to
go about armed with a revolver, in order to protect himself against our
much too liberally emancipated young scolos!'

Curiously enough this voice from St.-Quentin in France substantially
echoes another voice from another St. Quentin in California--the seat of