One Of The German Emperor's Boasts

One boast the Einperor is never weary of making in regard to liis government as coinpared witli that of the United States, natnely, that the officials of the fatherlaud are distinguished, if not for enterprise, at least for honesty. In the maiu this is true, but there are exceptions. The late Chancellor Bismarck had no sooner got lus imperial niachinery u running order, twenty-five years ago, than he iutroduced as part of his government oue of the most odious features of Russia, namely, the secret political pólice. He set aside large suins of inoney with whicli to pay informers, spies, and a class of wretches, uuknown in America, called agents provocateurs. The business of these last gentlemen was to organize disturbances among Socialists, in order that the government miglit have an excuse for making arrests of such as the great Prime Minister was was pleased to cali "enemies of the empire," or such as we wouldcall enemies to the Bismarckian policy. The fruit wliich this tree has borne is very bitter. A recent trial in Berlin disclosed the paiuful fact that this secret pólice, intrusted with the most delicate of all politica! tasks, has been using its aowers for the purpose of advancing the mterests of a court clique as opposed to the constitutional government of the country. Bribery, forgery, perjury, ïave been used in the hopesof damaging Baron Marschall, who is head of the Germán Foreign Office, and a man wholly i)ove the vulgar intrigues that flourish in the atmosphere of a court. But perhaps the saddest feature in the case is the side-light it throws upon the Gorman press. Our ovvu are not models of purity, hut it would be difficult to name a New York paper capable of doiug such dirty work as is expected of so called official and semi-ofikial papers in the land of Schiller and Goethe. When we in America read that the Germán press attacks this man or praises that one, it does not mean that the editors of these different papers have reached an independent opinión in regard to their relative merite, but it too frequently does mean that they have been instructed by the political pólice, or some other organ of state, that they must say this, that, or the other. I doubt if in all Germany could be found three great daily newspapers equal to the Slaats-Zeitung of New York; for I know that when our great New York contemporary abuses me, it does so because of its own independent bias, whereas a hundred Germán papers will quote an abusive paragraph from the Zeitung merely because it is sent to them by a press agent of the secret