encouraging them to fight, the husbands enjoying the fun more than the
other less interested spectators. The women of the lower classes seem to
be in a constant state of excitement and anger. They are always insulting
one another, calling each other names, or scolding and even ill-treating
their own children. What is more extraordinary still to European ears, is
that I once actually saw a wife stand up for her husband, and she did it
in a way that I am not likely soon to forget.

A soldier was peacefully walking along a narrow street, half of which
was a sort of drain canal, the water of which was frozen over, when a man
came out of a house and stopped him. The conversation became hot at once,
and with my usual curiosity, the only virtue I have ever possessed, I
stopped to see the result.

"You must pay me back the money I lent you," said the civilian in a very
angry tone of voice.

"I have not got it," answered the military man, trying to get away.

"Ah! you have not got it?" screamed a third personage, a woman emerging
from the doorway, and without further notice hit the soldier on the head
with the heavy wooden mallet commonly used for beating clothes.

The husband, encouraged by this unexpected reinforcement, boldly attacked
the soldier, and, whilst they were occupied in wrestling and trying to
knock each other down, the infuriated woman kept up a constant
administration of blows, half at least of which, in her aimless hurry,
were received by the companion of her life for whom she was fighting.
Once she hit the poor man so hard--by mistake--that he fell down in a
dead faint, upon which the soldier ran for his life, while she, jumping