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LETTER XXIII.

Basle.

MY DEAR

I walked through a highly cultivated country from Morat to Gumenen, a little village, six miles distant, where we break fasted, and had the good fortune to secure to ourselves the only two white loaves then in the place. It is pleasantly situated upon the Saane, a rapid river of considerable breadth, which is crossed by a wooden bridge of singular construction, with a tiled roof to shelter it from the weather. From this place we proceeded to Bern.

We entered the canton of Bern between Morat and Gumenen, and were immediately struck with the curious costume of the women. It is such that I should have supposed it greatly exaggerated if I had seen it only in a picture. The body of the gown, or bodice, if such it can be called, and the entire skirt is black, or if it is not entirely black, it presents a small square of white upon the bosom, surrounded as it were by a deep black frame—the sleeve

which issues from beneath it on either side is white and very full, giving them an appearance not very unlike that of a bishop in his lawn. I am aware of the temerity of the comparison, and yet I know not how to give you a better idea of the costume I am attempting to describe. The hair is suffered to grow to its full length, and is plaited into two tails, or queues, which are tied with black riband, and literally reach down to their heels. But the head has the oddest appearance. It is about half covered, and that at the back of it, with a black cap, from the edge of which springs a sort of ornamental trimming, which at a distance has the appearance of lace but I handled one at Gumenen, and found it nothing more nor less than black horse hair. This trimming rises perpendicularly from the cap to the extent of from three to six or seven inches, and looks like wings stretching from each side of the head, for it is so thrown back on the crown of the head, as not to be seen there in a front view. Now all this would have been well, (but certainly singular and grotesque enough to an English eye,) in a full dress or a holiday suit; but to see women working in the fields-beggars in the streets, and little children that could scarcely walk alone, thus adorned, was truly ridiculous. Yet, this dress prevails throughout the whole of the canton; we scarcely saw a woman on the road, or at her cottage door, or in the streets of Bern, who was not so attired. The costumes of Switzerland are almost as uniform as the dress of a charity school.

In every individual that you meet the cut and colour are the same, especially with the females, so that when you have seen one woman of the canton, you have seen all. This is the case, more or less, in every canton, and each has a costume of its own. At Bern we were furnished with complete sets of the Swiss costumes, represented in characteristic figures, by the pencil of M. Dinkel, a Swiss artist of great celebrity. He was represented to us by the vender of his productions as being now at the point of death, and one argument he employed to induce us to purchase, was, that his works would be greatly increased in value after his decease.

The approach to Bern is very pleasing; the country around is beautifully undulated and in the highest state of cultivation. The vicinity for a considerable distance indicated by its life and bustle, that we were approaching to a capital, and on entering the city by its beautiful trenches and noble gates, we found the streets crowded with people in their gayest attire-and filled with corn and cattle, and almost every article of commerce, it being market day. It is a magnificent city, and next to Paris, incomparably the finest we have yet seen on the continent. The houses are all built of stone, with arcades in the principal streets, and rows of well furnished shops. The town is abundantly supplied with fountains, and streams of water flow

through the centre of the streets, which are wide, in deep and broad channels cut for their reception. From the great influx of people the city had a very gay appearance. The expression, the costume, the language, all was perfectly new. I was greatly interested in my perambulations through it. It seemed to exhibit society under another aspect.It had not the refinement of Paris, nor the dullness of Geneva, but appeared like the capital of an active, and flourishing state.

The ca

There are many noble edifices in Bern. thedral is a magnificent pile of gothic architecture, occupying a bold elevation above the Aar. It possesses a remarkably fine organ, of enormous size, stretching to nearly the whole breadth of the church. They were preparing the choir, no longer disgraced by the splendid paraphanalia of popish worship, for the meeting of the Swiss Diet.

In the city of Bern, I was shocked by a spectacle of human degradation and wretchedness, such as I had never witnessed before. I was, of course, aware of the practice that prevails in many parts of the continent, of chaining criminals, like beasts, to carts, which they drag along the streets, for the purpose of collecting the filth and rubbish which is swept up and thrown in by other criminals of lighter delinquency and less heavily ironed here

I saw it, and it was, indeed, a most repulsive and humiliating sight. No doubt the hulks at Woolwich would exhibit as shocking a spectacle; but then it is not as here, obtruded upon one's eyes in the heart of the city, and where the mind is little prepared for such an affecting lesson. But it is common to the Bernese, and does not, of course, excite the same emotions in their minds as in those of strangers. Men, and even women, are doomed to this degrading punishment for years, and sometimes for life. I should hope that the diffusion of knowledge, and the advance of liberal sentiment, would sooner or later induce all civilized states to review their criminal codes, and make such revisions as the experience of past ages, and the public voice seem to require.*

• Perhaps I ought to qualify what I have written above, and I prefer doing it by a note, rather than by any alteration of the original passage. The closing remark, though excited by what I saw in Bern, is intended to apply not so much to any foreign systems of punishment as to our own. The sanguinary character of the British code, and the abuses that exist in the system of police and the economy of our prisons, are notorious evils, and, it is to be feared, more adapted to promote and increase, than diminish crimes. With respect to the practice above described in Bern, I am aware that Howard, and many enlightened philanthropists approve it, for the male convicts at least; the spectacle, however, when first beheld by a stranger. must strike him as barbarous and disgusting. These men might be usefully employed without converting the streets of the city into scenes of punishment, and compelling the innocent inhabitants to be spectators. America has unquestionably the advan

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