The army and the celibate clergy, the soldier and the priest--such are
the demoralizing elements that undermine domestic morality and family
life in garrison, priest-ridden towns like this. Drink and debauchery
fill the prisons, and the taint of immorality is not limited to one
class alone. How can it be otherwise? seeing that while the heads of
families openly profess unbelief, and deride their priests, they permit
their wives and daughters to go to confession, and confide their
children to the spiritual teachers they profess to abhor? This point was
clearly brought out by the Pere Hyacinthe in one of his recent
discourses in Paris, and his words struck home. Next to the celibate
priesthood, it is the army that brings about such a state of things.
Householders in Lons-le-Saunier will tell you that, no matter whether
their female servants be young, middle-aged, or old, they have to bar
and bolt their doors at night as if against marauding Arabs in remote
settlements of Algeria. Even when these precautions are taken, the sound
of whistling outside the kitchen door at nightfall will often indicate
the presence of loafers on their evil quest. In the rural districts
domestic morality is at a very low ebb also, and on the whole there is
much to be done here by both reformer and educationalist.
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