m which the Junker Bismarck has riveted on the whole German
people, with what results we now see. Badenese, Wuertembergers,
Franconians, Hanoverians, the citizens of the former free cities no
less than the already absorbed Westphalians, Thuringians, Silesians,
Mecklenburgers, were speedily all reduced to being the slaves of the
Prussian military system and of the Prussian military caste. The naive
German peoples, as already pointed out, accepted this Prussian
domination as the realization of their time-honoured patriotic ideal
of German unity.

The fact of their subservience was emphasized in every way. The law of
_lese-majeste_ (_majestaetsbeleidigung_), by which all criticism of the
despotic head of the State or his actions is made a heinous criminal
offence, to which severe penalties are attached, it is not too much to
say is a law which brands the ruler who accepts it as a coward and a
cur, and the Legislature which passes it as a house, not of
representative citizens, or even subjects for that matter, but of
representative _slaves_. It must not be forgotten that the law in
question strikes not only at public expressions of opinion in the
press or on the platform, but at the most private criticism made in
the presence of a friend in one's own room. The depths of undignified
and craven meanness to which a monarch is reduced by being thus
protected from criticism by the police-truncheon and the gaoler struck
me especially as illustrated by the following incident which happened
some years ago: Shortly after the accession of the present Kaiser, a
conjurer was giving his entertainment in a Swiss town. For one of the
tricks he was going to exhibit he had occasion to ask the audience to
send him up the names of a few public men on folded pieces of paper.
His reception of the names written down was accompanied by the
"patter" proper to his profession. On coming to the name of Kaiser
Wilhelm II he ventured the remark, "Ah! I'd rather it had been the
poor man just dead" (meaning the Emperor Frederick), "for I'm afraid
this one's not much good." Will it be believed that the whole
diplomatic machinery was set on foot to induce the Swiss Government to
prosecute the unfortunate entertainer, abortively of course, since it
could not have been legally done? Surely the head of a State who could
allow his Government to descend to such contemptible pettiness must be
devoid of all sense of common self-respect, not to say personal
digni