The Amish of the Mifflin County Area are severely plain in "back-sections;" often without any modern conveniences; no blinds at windows or doors; no rugs; simple wearing apparel, home-made, or perhaps ordered through a specialist in the making thereof.
An informant says that these people have no pictures on the walls--only mottoes and gaudy calendars.
A woman of mature years, having a new home erected, on entering it one day discovered modern plumbing devices had been installed, and she forthwith ordered removal of same.
They eat enough, and of good variety, and their complexions appear quite superior to the "healthy appearances" obtained from boxes and jars which may be purchased in drug stores.
Church rules are not a matter of printed or written record, but of oral delivery or tradition among the Old Amish. It is not impossible that this condition may lead to unpleasant and unlooked-for results some day, if perhaps such has not been the case in more instances than have generally come to light.
If any of the young of the Old Amish marry outside the "faith," expulsion from membership will, and loss
of inheritance may follow, unless the non-member also adopts the faith and garb. This applies only to the Meeting House Amish in cases where marriage takes place into families which are not non-resistant.
Five "Varieties."--Among the Amish in Mifflin county, Pennsylvania, there are five "varieties." They include the very conservative, known as the "Nebraskas," their women still wearing the old Shaker hats and avoiding bonnets, and whose men are not permitted to wear suspenders--to the branch that worships in regular meeting houses, and who have discarded nearly all restrictions, except the bonnet.
Then there are the "Peacheyites" (named for one of their number), who may wear a single suspender, if home-made. A group organized by Abe Zook. Another group is permitted to wear store suspenders to hold up their trousers, but few other so-called "sinful pleasures of life."
These distinctions, they say, do not apply to Lancaster county Amish in this day and generation.
We are, however, familiar with the "one suspender" type.
Children Sometimes Backward.--Conditions among these people sometimes really require sympathy, especially among the young who sometimes hide themselves from the sight of "English" persons, making use of corn-shocks, or whatever they find handy.
This practice is not unusual among children of some other persuasions, where the parents have too much stunted their natural mental developments; but then, too, we do know it to be a too-common-practice of our "English" people to ridicule people of other origins. Persons, not of the Amish order, are English.