atter to at once surrender the regency
and the Lippe estates, which are immensely valuable, yielding an
income of eight hundred thousand dollars, to Count Ernest of Lippe,
on the ground that if a mesalliance such as the one contracted by the
count's eighteenth-century ancestor were to be considered sufficient
to invalidate his rights to the regency and to the succession to the
throne, as the nearest living male relative of the crazy reigning
prince, half the thrones of Germany would have to be vacated by their
present occupants.

It was pointed out by the arbitrators that if the contention of Prince
Adolph and the kaiser were admitted, the Grand Duke of Baden would
have to abandon his throne; the branch of the Baden family to which
he belonged being descended from a prince of Baden who contracted a
mesalliance at the close of the last century; that all the children of
the emperor himself would be barred from succession to the throne of
Germany, since the great-grandfather of the present Empress of Germany
was the offspring of a terrible mesalliance; while last, but not
least, Prince Adolph himself was descended from a prince of Lippe who
towards the close of the last century, fell in love with and married
the daughter of a mere writ-server, whose blood flows in the veins of
the emperor's brother-in-law.

Emperor William and Prince Adolph bitterly resented the setback to
which they were subjected by this decree of the King of Saxony; and
although they were forced to yield in the present instance, they
threatened to reopen the entire question should anything untoward
happen to the present regent, Count Lippe, for they insist that under
no circumstances can any of his sons be permitted to inherit either
his rights or his honors, owing to the fact that his wife, the
Countess of Lippe, is also the issue of a mesalliance, her mother
having been an American girl, a native of Philadelphia, who married
Count Leopold Wartensleben. On the strength of this, Prussian
authorities, military as well as civilian, while directed to accord
to the Count of Lippe the honors due to the regent of a German
sovereignty, are forbidden to recognize in any way either the count's
consort or his children, on the ground that these can only be regarded
as morganatic, and as such debarred from the tokens of respect due to
full-fledged members of a sovereign house.

Naturally, all this has served to render Prince Adolph and his wife
extremely unpopu