Before we reached the street, I was already made to feel that some strange
scenes and experiences were undoubtedly in store for me in Paris and
likely throughout the rest of my continental tour, for I had already
observed one of those strange social habits of the Parisians in a most
public place which the nice delicacies of our language and customs forbid
to describe.

The French, the Italians, and many of the inhabitants of South Germany and
parts of Switzerland--I should say all the sunny lands in Europe--have
handed down to our day, manners and customs which speak in a language that
cannot be misunderstood, and with a force far louder than a whisper, that
_it is not very long since man took to dressing himself_. In my
intercourse with those people, from Paris to Egypt, I nowhere observed any
baneful influences exerted over morality by these practices in question,
for they are not thought about by those people which are guilty of them,
but many an American will be shocked at them, and go home declaring that
such indecencies _must_ lead to immoralities, even if they have never gone
to the trouble to see whether they actually _do_. Their pernicious
influence upon American tastes and manners may be granted, but that does
not prove that foreigners, who are cradled, nursed and brought up in these
customs, will be affected in like manner. American and English tourists
are alike shocked and provoked at the sight of the innumerable nude
statues and paintings, on the, pleasure gardens and in the art galleries,
but the ladies of the continent seem to see as little of indecencies or
improprieties in those things, as we do in opening our Bibles and seeing
saints and apostles represented with bare feet--the _toes_ standing out
naked over the sandals, or when we read in the family circle and in the
public capacity of teachers and ministers, passages from Scriptures,
such as no one would be capable of reading if they were found in a