strata. The Prussian nobility, well known, even abroad, by their nickname the Junkers, are for the most part (at least, as far as Prussia proper is concerned), the descendants of the Teutonic knights, of those Northern crusaders who carried the cross to the shores of the Baltic in the thirteenth century. They still own large tracts of land in the thinly populated regions conquered by their ancestors. They are fond of residing permanently in their solitary manors, their time being divided between the chase and the pursuits of agriculture. Many circumstances, however, conspire to make agriculture in those regions an unprofitable, or, at least, an unsafe occupation; and the consequence is that, on the whole, these gentlemen have far more blood than money to boast of. Few only can afford to live in idleness; and if they have to choose a professional career, it is natural that they should prefer the military career to all others. Even now, almost all the officers of the Prussian Army belong to the nobility; at the time of Frederick William IV. the same could be said of the higher functionaries of the civil service. On the whole, the Prussian nobles have always shown themselves worthy of the distinction they enjoyed. Strict integrity, perfect freedom from profligacy and from the frivolities of dandyism, and a certain superiority of manners, secured for them the respect, if not the good-will, of the people. Yet the Prussians have never been proud of their Junkers, as the English are of their nobles. Nor could they have felt proud of them. For, unlike the English aristocracy, which is continually recruited from the lower ranks, the Prussian nobles were a race within a race, a real caste that had nothing in common with the bulk of the people. Thirty years ago mixed marriages (between nobles and burgesses) were rare; partly from want of social opportunities, partly owing to technical and conventional, if not legal, difficulties. There was no strict equality before the law in those days. A burgher striking a nobleman incurred a greater penalty than a Junker striking a burgher. Although such cases occurred but seldom, the iniquity of the prerogative was keenly felt by the plebeian classes; and, considering what the Prussian plebs was, the Junkers' immunities appeared worse than iniquitous, - absurd. The circumstance that many of

the Junkers were officers, and wore "the king's uniform," did much to aggravate the estrangement and antagonism of the two classes; and the two distinctions between noble and burgher, and between military-man and civilian, came soon to be used promiscuously and to be considered as indicative of the same social anomaly.

Only the school and the Landwehr drill forced the two classes to the same level; and the natural result of thirty years' schooling was that a new generation was growing up, which, though plebeian de jure, formed, in point of fact, a new kind of aristocracy, — an intellectual aristocracy, which was not likely long to remain unconscious of its, at least partial, superiority to the native squires.

—

This was a corrective, as far as it went; but it did not go very far. For, although the tradesman's or the peasant's son might become a scholar, he remained a poor man's son after all, and had to look out for a profitable career. And, unfortunately for his moral independence, the Prussian state machine was so constructed that almost all the honors, emoluments, and good things of this world were in the king's giving. He might study theology; but, as a clergyman, he was under the control, and often in the pay, of the state church consistory. As a professor he was likewise a paid official of the king, a "royal professor." And if he became a judge or a barrister, or one of those innumerable counsellors and clerks that form the "sitting" army of the civil service of Prussia, his very choice of career implied that he was ready to identify himself with the ruling powers and with the principles they upheld. He thus became a bureaucrat; and, if he still felt any hostility against the aristocrat, he found himself tongue-tied. He held his office for life. His salary maintained him and his family, and its forfeiture entailed misery and starvation. He could not afford to incur such a danger; and, as a rule, Prussian officials do not feel tempted to do so. Their career, though poor in emoluments, is remarkably rich in honors and, above all, in titles. The terminology of these Prussian titles is well known. It sounds odd enough, and as the husband's title is given, mutatis mutandis, to the wife, the effect becomes decidedly ludicrous. But

"Gaudent prænomine molles

Auriculæ ";

and women's ears form no exception to the rule, as the shrewd author of this Prussian custom must have known. A Prussian employee can always look forward to some promotion or new distinction, and his whole position is such as to give him at once a feeling of importance and of superiority in rank, which almost always effaces his old plebeian rancor against the man of noble birth and the man in uniform. And as converts are apt to become zealots, it happens, not unfrequently, that such officials out-junker the Junkers in pride and haughtiness.

It is but just, however, to add that the Prussian bureaucracy, though harsh and unamiable, has never been mercenary or corruptible; and that the tyranny of the government, though stupid and vexatious, has never been cruel in its methods or morally bad in its aims. The official became either a grateful convert or a reticent opponent. In the latter case he renounced part of his independence. But an honorable man could always afford to serve the Prussian government and to accept its pay. A high tone pervaded the whole administration, and everybody felt proud of it, irrespective of political sentiments.

Far though it reached, the influence of this bureaucratic hierarchy could not pervade all the strata of society. There were some independent classes which stood beyond the reach of its temptations, and which were free to criticise the government, though not to oppose it. These were the medical men, the professional literati, and the commercial people. The government had some baits even for them. A doctor might be made a "medicinal counsellor," a "sanitary counsellor," or a "general staff physician"; and even a merchant was liable to become a "commercial counsellor." But, on the whole, these classes remained unbiassed and independent. The merchants, especially, seemed to be the natural antagonists of the squirearchy, not only because they were merchants, but because their class contained an element which has played, and is still playing, an important part in Prussian history, the Jewish element. All the eastern provinces, which once formed the nucleus of the Prussian state, teemed, and still teem, with Jews. When Frederick William IV. ascended the throne

the political emancipation of the Jews had not even been thought of. But their great natural abilities and their political disabilities conspired to make them a real power, which the last generation was foolish enough to dread and stupid enough not to utilize. Excluded from all careers requiring an oath of allegiance, they knew in their cradles that they could look forward only to three kinds of pursuit, commerce, literature, and the study of medicine. They have, in fact, imparted to these professions a peculiar smartness, otherwise unknown in the Baltic North; and have acted, directly through literature and indirectly through commercial activity and the accumulation of wealth, as a powerful leaven on the solid and somewhat heavy mass of feudal prejudices and pedantic learning which surrounded them. The Prussian Jews, forced into pursuits which gave them intellectual and pecuniary independence, constituted, and still constitute, a class of which it is impossible to speak too highly. Most of them have ceased to be orthodox Jews. They light the Christmas-tree for their children, and a good many become Protestants (always in the widest acceptation of the word), in order either to marry a Christian woman or to obtain a professor's chair. But, though religion sits lightly on them, they cannot easily shake off the peculiarities of their race. And where they do shake them off, by intermarrying, they lose less than the community gains by the process. It was, indeed, fortunate for Prussian society that its two poles were not, as in most other countries, the nobility and the mob, but two nobilities, as it were, the Teutonic and the Hebrew nobility. What they had in common was wealth and culture (although the Jewish culture and the Jewish wealth were of a different kind from the culture and the wealth of the feudal land-owners). In all other respects they differed, as two poles must differ, toto cœlo. The nobles were the natural supporters of the throne and the church, of right divine and feudalism, of pietism and romanticism; while the Jews were, just as naturally, the champions of liberty and of rationalism. The former defended the status quo; the latter, a state to come.

Below the strata of the middle classes we need not go in search of germs for the coming political life. The working classes of Prussia were, thirty years ago, politically speaking,

an inert mass, though a highly respectable and industrious set of people, and the peasantry of those days were of course still further removed from political competency. They formed the crudest and, as yet, "slowest " ingredient of Prussian society. What is commonly called the "mob" has never existed in Prussia. No roughs, no "dangerous classes," infest the large towns, though street beggars may still be met with in the agricultural and in the Roman Catholic provinces. Prussia may justly boast of having among her children neither dandies nor roughs, neither "dangerous classes" nor idle consumers; and sweeping though this assertion may appear, its accuracy cannot fairly be impugned.

From all this it is clear that there were two centres of gravity in Prussian society. Round the one were grouped the feudal gentry, the pietistic clergy, the military men, and, whether they willed it or not, the whole staff of officials and salaried professionals; while the group attracted by the other consisted chiefly of literary and commercial men. The people were thus divided into two distinct portions, of essentially different views, sentiments, and habits of thought. Each was anxious to assert itself and to influence public opinion; and, as this could only be done through the press, the "freedom of the press " became the first political cry in Prussia. The press laws had been extremely severe, and the only concession made in this respect by Frederick William IV. consisted in exempting all publications of more than three hundred and twenty pages from the censor's control: No wonder the authors were not satisfied. The daily press was in a lamentable condition; not, of course, from any dearth of literary talent, but from want of independence. There were many things in Prussia which called for criticism and invited satire, and both wits and critics had a great deal to say. They could speak with impunity, but, if they wished to address the public in print, they had to resort to all sorts of ingenious and not always dignified stratagems. A townsman of Dr. Jacoby's published a pamphlet containing a collection of the king's choicest edicts and "cabinet orders," without one syllable of comment or preface. He was prosecuted and fined for having italicized certain passages. But the real loser was not the editor, but the royal author of the pamphlet; and the people