432

DOMESTIC MANNERS OF THE TRUSSIANS.

The Berlin sages, however, are still in their political dotage,and, like half-imbecile greybeards, cannot lielp regarding evengrown-up people as children; and assuredly tlie sight of thepetrified bones of a megatherium, turned up in the strata atthe present day, does not carry the mind more vividly intothe past than does tlie sound of the 10 o'clock bell, which ringsat Coblenz every night to warn all good people that it is timcto retire to their beds, carry the thoughts backward to thedarkest ages.

To the "mind's eye," indeed, the poor Deutschers ap-pear in the nineteenth Century as raere political babies—go-vernmental " Wickel-kinder" that the old women at Berlin stillbelieve it to be necessary to bind band and foot in order torender upright—monarchical children, that are not yet ableto go ahne, and who cannot even speak plainly, poor littlethings! but who are obliged to be looked after at every stepby their ugly nurses the police, and to be tied so closely to theapron-strings of their gross-mutterisch State authorities, thatthey dare not stir away from home without first asking per-mission of the " Direction."

It requires no little faith on the part of Englishmen tobelieve what an infinitesimally sinall amount of libertyGerm ans are permitted to enjoy.

Not only does the bell toll, as we have said, for all peopleto quit the wine and beer-houses before eleven, but it is for-bidden by the police to talk either upon religion or politicsin such places — the landlord, for the first offence, beingpunished by fine, and for the second by the permanentclosino; of bis use. Now an Englishman, with the recollec-tion of the Hyde Park riots in bis mind, would fancy thatthe tyrannical insolence which presumes to dictate to grownmen the subjects that they are to talk upon, would breed, atleast, an dmeute, if not a revolution, in the land. But no!