tenants. Nevertheless a few peasants living on the Ritter Güter have managed to become proprietors, and special enactments secure to them remain the same as of yore except that many thatched roofs have been replaced by tile ones. On the eaves the stork-an ever-welcome guest Each Mecklemburg town has municipal laws of its own. The municipality exercises judicial functions (der magistrat), and either the burgomaster, or (in some cases) a a seat in the Landtag. member deputed to act for A coarse, hard - featured folk him, represents the town in these peasants, but pious and the Landtag. The lot of the The lot of the hard-working too. Year - in, peasantry varies according to year out they till the soil, whether their tenements are so barren in many parts. In situated in the Domanium tiny carts, often drawn by (private Grand Ducal prop- dogs, they drag their produce erty), or on the estates owned to the town markets. Their by towns, squires, or "con- villages-all remarkably alike vents." As regards the Domanium, a law passed in 1820 or thereabouts, made the peasants residing within its limits into hereditary leaseholders. Their present position is builds his nest. Poverty is scarcely distinguishable from that of owners, but de jure proprietors they cannot become, since the Grand Duke is inalienable proprietor of all land within the Domanium. No restrictions limit the right of the leaseholder to make testamentary dispositions with regard to, or raise mortgages on, the land. Further, in the Domanium, village elders (Schultzen) exercise extended powers of local government. The rights of peasants dwelling on the properties of towns, squires, or convents (Städtische, Ritter oder Kloster Güter) are more circumscribed. Their power of raising mortgages is severely restricted, and they possess no powers of self-government. Village elders exist, but are merely officials responsible to the landowners. The latter exercise all functions of government (local and parliamentary) on behalf of their our almost universal, but penury A to the Taal of the Boers. It the uniform is very different is said that when President from that of other German Krüger came to Europe after troops. Saxony has no septhe 1884 Convention, Prince arate educational establishBismarck conversed with him ments for its army, but uses in this Low German dialect. Prussia's. Its officers are more No one can be long in Meck- easily interchangeable with lemburg without noticing the those of Prussia than is the interest and affection which case in Bavaria. Würtemburg the people-down to the low- (the remaining kingdom) furest-evince towards the army. nishes one army corps of the The writer has found the same 23, as against 2 kept up elsewhere. If the labour poli- by Saxony and 3 by Bavaria. ticians, whose acquaintance It is accordingly less distinct with Germany is limited to a still from Prussia. The two few "conducted tours" and Mecklemburg Grand Duchies Socialist banquets, could mix furnish one contingent (a with the people at large, as Division). Their stipulated he has done, they would re- contribution towards the turn with a truer idea of the Imperial military budget is feelings which animate the placed entirely at Prussia's mass of the Kaiser's subjects. disposal. The personnel is in theory absolutely interchangeable. Mecklemburg officers are appointed by Prussia, but hold a Prussian and a Grand Ducal commission. The uniform of all ranks has Mecklemburg as well as Imperial insignia. The Mecklemburg regiments are, however, officered largely by scions of noble Mecklemburg families. No description of any part of Germany would be complete without a mention of its armed forces. The loosely knit and complicated nature of the German Empire is well exemplified by the constitution of its army. The Emperor can declare war with the concurrence of the Federal Council (Bundesrat), and thenceforward becomes War Lord (Kriegs Herr) of the entire army. But in peace time his authority over the contingents of the States and free towns is limited by conventions with their heads, viz., the rulers and senates respectively. In practice it varies according to the importance of the State. Thus Bavaria has an entirely separate army and military educational institutions. Its officers (except a few who go to Prussia) never serve in the forces of other States. Even The foregoing somewhat closely arrayed faets and statistics as at the time of writing, April of this year, are replete with lessons for those who would comprehend the aims and aspirations of modern Germany. Do they not throw a lurid light on the conflicting interests and rival claims which created-and still create such serious difficulties in the smooth working of this complex machine? Germans readily admit that the Emperor is not a welcome guest in many nations, the impossible ideals and mawkish oratory of British and American pacificists can have no attraction. And if her army belongs to united Germany in war-time only, the navy has been hers from its beginnings. Thence the enthusiasm which its development arouses from the Danube to the Baltic. Anglo-German friendship, like any other, must be founded on mutual esteem. Let us therefore maintain our strength by sea, and create an army worthy of our position in the world. Then will cease the scares, the bickerings, and the impertinent attempts at interfering in other nations' concerns, which more certainly than aught else fan the smouldering embers of discord the and strife. parts of his dominions. No love is lost between the overbearing Prussians and the denizens of the other States who maintain an attitude of aloofness and suspicion towards the power under whose hegemony they are united. Fortunately the army, on the morrow of its reconstitution, succeeded by its victories in assuaging old-time rancours and cementing the bond of union. Can we wonder that the leaders of the State strive to keep before the people the idea of a common Fatherland which must be strong and united in the face of external foes? For a people which has fought its way up from small beginnings, through toil and strife, through blood and tears, to its present proud place amongst THE LETTERS OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.1 BY MOIRA O'NEILL, A MAN'S dearest friend is certainly his best introducer to others, and Sir Sidney Colvin is nothing if not tactful. In a sense R. L. S.-as So many people call him-is the friend of nearly all who know his writings, whether they have seen him or not. He could never have been an impersonal writer; and much of what he did was done with a touch so intimate and characteristic as to endear him to a whole world of readers long before his published letters saw the light. He had the good fortune to win recognition and fame during his too short life; and he has had the bad fortune to be not too much read, but a great deal too much talked about since his death. This is, no doubt, partly owing the fascination of the 'Letters.' to though his cleverness was the least important part of him, it was the part on which it was easiest to descant. Then, having been overpraised in some directions, he was unduly depreciated in a particularly injudicious manner. All this is quite in the natural course of events. But now we have his autobiography in these 'Letters,'an autobiography the more valuable because it was unintentional; and it behoves us to consider not merely the new letters-easily identified, as they are marked by asterisks in the list of contents,— but the whole story. For it is not only the story of a man of genius, but of a very remarkable life of a man whose spirit was as strong as his body was frail, whose heart was as tender as a young child's, while his wit was as sharp and quick as an arrow flying straight to the mark. Let it be said at the beginning, needless as it may seem, that here we are to consider the life of a singularly upright man-one who was disinterested the dull interested to the point of Quixotism in his business, in his affections, and in his dealings with literature; one who was quickly moved to recog If you are a singularly charming person, and are fluent and "forthcoming as well, it naturally follows that a large number of people will think they know you particularly well, and even feel called upon to explain your merits and your gifts to the dull world about them. Besides, Stevenson was really, as he said himself of some one else, too clever to live"; and 1 These 'Letters,' edited by Sir Sidney Colvin, are in four light volumes, which contain practically the whole of Stevenson's correspondence, and "constitute in effect a nearly complete autobiography." nise noble motives in others, but very sparing of fine language about his own noble motives, though he had the gift of language to well, to be frank, to an almost fatal degree. We may notice his letter to his father, written at the age of fifteen “RESPECTED PATERNAL RELATIVE, -I write to make a request of the most moderate nature. Every year I have cost you an enormous-nay, elephantine-sum of money for drugs and physician's fees, and the most expensive time of the twelve months was March. "But this year the biting Oriental blasts, the howling tempests, and the general ailments of the human race have been successfully braved by yours truly. "Does not this deserve remuneration? "I appeal to your charity, I appeal to your generosity, I appeal to your justice, I appeal to your accounts, I appeal, in fine, to your purse. "My sense of generosity forbids the receipt of more-my sense of justice forbids the receipt of lessthan half-a-crown.-Greeting from, sir, your most affectionate and needy son, R. STEVENSON." "Typical of much in his life's conditions both then and later," is this letter; and typical in much the same odd, prophetic way is this letter to his mother at the age of eighteen : "Tonight I went with the youngest M. to see band of players in the town hall. a strolling A large table placed below the gallery with a print curtain on either side of the most limited dimensions was at once the scenery and the proscenium. The manager told us that his scenes were sixteen by sixty-four, and so could not be got in. Though I knew, or at least felt sure, that there were no such scenes in the poor man's possession, I could not laugh, as did the major part of the audience, at this shift to escape criticism. We saw a wretched farce, and some comic songs were sung. The manager sang one, but it came grimly from his throat. The whole receipt of the evening was 5s. and 3d, out of which had to come room, gas, and town drummer. We left soon; and I must say came out as sad as I have been for ever so long: I think that manager had a soul above comic songs. I said this to (Matthew Arnold's Philistine, you young M., who is a Phillistine' understand), and he replied, 'How much happier would he be as a common working - man!' I told happy earning a comfortable living him I thought he would be less as a shoemaker than he was starv ing as an actor, with such artistic work as he had to do. But the Philistine wouldn't see it. You observe that I spell Philistine time about with one and two l's." He Are there many lads of eighteen who would have seen the pathos instead of the deception in the scenes that were sixteen by sixty-four, and so could not be got in?-or have sympathised with a man who could more happily starve as an actor than live comfortably as a working man? No, but then Louis was not really eighteen in the year 1868, as he ought to have been. was curiously old in his youth; there was no healthy hardness in his moral texture. Probably physical weakness, the sufferrecollection and the unfailing ing which was his earliest companion of all his days, may be responsible for much of this sensitiveness. It had its compensation, as all things have. He kept the zest, the openheartedness and receptiveness |