cond
classes were in complete control of the city government by a clear
majority of two-thirds.

It is this three-class system of voting that makes Prussia, and the
Prussian cities as well, impregnable against any assault from the
democratically inclined. In addition to this system, the old electoral
divisions of forty years ago remain unchanged, and consequently the
agricultural east of Prussia, including east and west Prussia,
Brandenburg, Pomerania, Posen, and Silesia, with their large
landholders, return more members to the Prussian lower house than the
much greater population of western industrial Prussia, which includes
Sachsen, Hanover, Westphalia, Schleswig-Holstein, Hohenzollern,
Hessen-Nassau, and the Rhine. Further, the executive government of
Prussia is conducted by a ministry of state, the members of which are
appointed by the King, and hold office at his pleasure, without
control from the Landtag.

How little the people succeeded in extorting from King Frederick
William IV in the way of a constitution may be gathered from this
glimpse of the present political conditions of Prussia.

The local government of Prussia is practically as centralized in a few
hands as the executive government of the state itself. The largest
areas are the provinces, whose chiefs or presidents also are appointed
by the sovereign, and who represent the central government. There are
twelve such provinces in Prussia, ranging in size from the Rhineland
and Brandenburg, with 7,120,519 and 4,093,007 inhabitants
respectively, to Schleswig-Holstein, with 1,619,673.

Each province is divided into two or more government districts, of
which there are thirty-five in all. At the head of each of these
districts is the district president, also appointed by the crown.

In addition there is the Kreis, or Circle, of which there are some
490, with populations varying from 20,000 to 801,000. These circles
are, for all practical purposes, governed by the Landrath, who is
appointed for life by the crown, and who is so fully recognized as the
agent of the central government and not as the servant of the locality
in which he rules, that on one occasion several Landraethe were
summarily dismissed for voting against the government and in
conformity to the wishes of the inhabitants of the circle in which
they lived! Though the Landrath is nominated by the circle assembly
for appointment by the crown, he can be dismissed by his superiors of
the centra