Jasper Republican, Volume 2, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 September 1875 — Very Plain Swiss. [ARTICLE]

Very Plain Swiss.

A correspondent of the Louisville Courier Journal writes from Switzerland; The vulgar idea of the interest ter of mountaineers, whether male or, female, is, you know, fallacious everywhere,' ' and notably so here in Stflteflriand. romance there is none wlth them.' It all goes into the mountains, the: rocks; theN veils of snow and cloud and positively there is none left foiThe wretched inhabitants. They are an awfullooking lot of folks as a general ihihg. 1 ' Now and then, at the crack hotelsj iay oF the Rhigi or Luzerne, you seeAQme rather fine-looking, healthy waiting-girls, dressed ? in piquant costumes—that is one of the tricks that show how smart these people are when they are after your money—and I do remember also, and pleasantly, too, one very sweet, gentle pair of eyes at the Hotel du Lac at Luzerne, but fife.grad mass of the women are not only ugly Wttt positively hideous. I think this ugliness must be bred in them fo* generations. Their enormous feet and ankles are easily explained by their having to waft: over these rough, rocky paths, up and down very steep tracks; but this is • not all of the reason why. >T&e peasant women here do the very roughest sort pf work in and out doors, and the.hurdens they are wonVto carry on their backs are really appalling. They do not seem to mind them much. They trudge along with these burdens cm the highways, bending forward at an angle of forty-five degrees, stooping more even than afhshionable American girl with an attack of the Grecian bend. Several times i have stopped them,and “hefted,” to use an Americanism, their loads, but only for a moment. One trial was enough. It is the same way with the men. The loads they are able to pack on their backs up a. mountain would try very sorely the patience and long-suffering of a Kentucky mule. The faCt*is, life goes rather hard with these poor beings. They Katfe id work very laboriously, and they begin pretty early in the day. And yet they do not seem careworn and unhappy . I saw numbers of them to-day on my hour's tramp to and from the Riechenback FtdW, and all seemed eheerfrtl enough. • a —Winchester, Va., which was taken and retaken seventy-two times during the war, has not varied a hundred in population in twenty-five years. _ . v a •• The matutinal flap-jack will be iff Inexpensive luxury this winter. Buckwheat was never so plenty and cheap before.