giving evidence of her name, age, birthplace, and freedom from crime and immorality during three years. Her employer must keep all this written down in a book, and produce it when the police ask for it. She must not live with her employer, nor in the same house; she must leave the place at 10 P.M. and not re-enter it till 7 next morning. Waitresses must not sit or stand about with customers. They are forbidden to wear fancy costumes, and they may only wear national costumes upon proving to the satisfaction of the police that they really belong to the nationality in question. Otherwise their dress must not be open at the neck, and must come down at least to the ankle.

The police regulations about public meetings and the press are a little dull after this, and are better known in England. You must not hold a public meeting without giving twenty-four hours' clear notice to the police, and when you print anything you must dash off at once with a copy for the approval of the police. Finally, bulldogs and all larger dogs, as short or long-haired St Bernards, must be muzzled and led by a leash not more than 16 inches long, and that not on the pavement but in the street. And in winter you may skate only between the red flags, and unless the green flag is up you may not skate at all.

When I had read all this I was taken with a fierce

longing to go out and commit a crime. Few of the above cost more than 9s.; some only 3s., some only 1s. I wanted to do something untidy, to spoil something, to block the way, to break a bottle and only pick the pieces up carelessly, to hold an openair meeting, to fire a revolver at a policeman, to wear a skirt above the ankle-anything, so long as it was a crime. In the course of twenty minutes' walk in a public pleasure place I counted fifty boards all forbidding something or other; and then I deliberately and openly walked across the grass. I was not arrested! That particular board was momentarily without its attendant policeman. The truth is that all the regulations cannot be always enforced-never can be till all the inhabitants are policemen but one. But would you like to be a German ?

225

VII.

WILLIAM II.1

WILLIAM II. has now been on the throne of Germany for thirteen years. During the greater part of this time his rule has been in practice, if not in theory, quite despotic. He is now forty-one years old— that is, in the high prime of life, though the Germans, by contrast with his grandfather, often speak of him as if he were a mere boy. His abilities are unquestioned; his sincerity and honesty of intention, to my mind, beyond suspicion. His worst enemy could not accuse him of not knowing his own mind. His energy wellnigh amounts to a wonder of nature. His hand is in every detail of government: he can ride in icy rain all day at the head of his cavalry, transact business in the afternoon, attend a banquet and stagger Europe with a drink-speech, and then go off to sleep in his special train, and do the same thing next day and the next and the next. There are all

1 Vide Editor's note, at the end of this chapter.

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sorts of stories about mysterious maladies, but whatever may or may not be affecting him has certainly not curtailed his powers of work. With all his high qualities, his quickness, insight, sincerity, self-confidence, resolution, energy, he has in thirteen years accomplished-nothing: absolutely nothing.

Absolutely nothing to show for himself by the side of the Great Elector, of Frederic the Great, of Friedrich Wilhelm III., of William I. Even his father had taken a man's share in the making of Germany; the son has made nothing. And not only that, but throughout his whole empire- ruled, remember, almost literally in accordance with his personal wishes in every smallest particular-broods sullen discontent and irritation. I do not mean that every German is discontented, nor have I any instrument to gauge exactly how discontented Germans are; but that, from one cause or another, there does exist a vast deal of dissatisfaction with the present government of the German empire is quite beyond dispute. You may divide it into two main branches, each with almost numberless subdivisions. There are the discontents outstanding from the last generation, when nationality formed the basis of insurrections and wars -the national, Particularist sentiment of Bavaria and Saxony, of Hanover and Hesse and Frankfurt, of the Alsatians and the Poles. And there are the new growing discontents which spring up out of economic

ground-the new generation's kind of dissatisfaction revealing itself in anti-Semitism, in Agrarianism, and Socialism.

The first kind of disaffection might be exaggerated; the wonderful thing is that it subsists at all. But to prove that it subsists you have only to get a Bavarian or a Saxon by himself and talk to him for a few minutes. Sometimes he will be more anti-Prussian, sometimes less; but he will very seldom profess not to know that there is a very bitter feeling against the Prussianisation of both States. How far Prussianisation has gone-say, in Bavaria-hardly matters; the essential point is, that, real or fanciful, it is bitterly resented. The suggestion, for example, of the introduction of the black trousers of the Prussian soldier into the Bavarian army, instead of the traditional bright blue, raised a howl of indignation. The volume of the howl was not very great, but so far as it went it was shrill. Its leader was a Dr Sigl, editor of a newspaper very influential among the Bavarian peasants, member of the Reichstag, and popularly known as the "Prussian-gobbler." He is a vulgar agitator, say his enemies, and perhaps he is. But the fact that the least attempt to assimilate Bavaria to Prussia in the least particular sets Dr Sigl off, screaming indignation, and winning by-elections into the bargain, is far from insignificant.

In the semi-independent kingdoms Particularism is