AN OLD GERMAN STORY. (FROM THE "LONDON REVIEW.")

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XVII, Issue 1438, 24 September 1861, Page 4

AN OLD GERMAN STORY. (FROM THE " LONDON REVIEW.")

The free city of Hamburgh, to which steamers run regularly from London and Hull, is not unknown to the mercantile world, though it does not lie in the exact line of the tourists, who travel accoiding to the decrees of Murray. Hambmgh contains many " good men," in the exchange and discount sense of the adjective ; it is also remarkable for its excellent eel soup, the splendid promenades that surround the Alster, the stately swans, and gay pleasuie boats which navigate'titat intramural lake But it is uc tto float on the A'lster that we would carry an imaginary tourist thither on this occasion. We would ask him to leave its line of quays (we wish we had such quays on the Thames) and turning westward through the old part of the city, pass the gate, on the road to Blankenese, on the north bank of the Elbe. Immediately on the outside of that gate, ]ust as the Strand is a continuation of Fleet-street, lies what may appear to be only a, subuib of Hatnbmg. But it is something more. On the western side of that portal begins the town of Altona, and when the gate is shut, the line it forms across the road is part of the frontier of the Duchy of Holstein. Thus, in an insidious manner, have we led the leader to the thieshold of that thoiny, complicated, difficult, and in every way detestable subject, called the Schleswig Holatein question. And if he will bear us company for a few minutes, we will endeavour to make it less dry, difficult, and repulsive than it generally appears to bein diplomatic notes and despatches. That the dispute has, since 1848, been the cause of one bloody war ; that the German Confederation has kept the case in its political Chancery for twelve years ; and that countless German professors have helped to tangle the matter by treatises of gieat perplexity and learning, are not encouraging facts ; but common sense may find a clue, even through the Egyptian fogs of German erudition ; and we will begin to trace it at the Altona gate of Hamburgh. Through it you pass into a locality well known to and but too much sought by seafaring men, who there recreate themselves in a sailor's paiadise of drinking and dancing rooms. It abounds also in shops that expose for sale the trophies of Jack's leturn from many climes ; parrots, cockatoos, and monkeys ; Indian war-clubs and spears ; ostriches' eggs, hideous idols, and everything useless and ugly, the chief recommendations of this kind of marine stores in every seaport. There are also shows of giants and dwarfs, and pink-eyed women ; and swings and roundabouts in permanence, for the elements of Greenwich fair and Wapping have been fixed in the St. Pauli suburb of Altona. But passing through it we reach the railway station, from whence trains run to Neumunster ; there the line branches off to Rendsbuig in one direction, and Kiel in another ; and at either of those towns we come to the root of the whole matter. Kiel is, like Altona, in the Duchy of Holstein, of which the King of Denmark has the misfortune to be duke by inheritance, with the additional calamity of being, by virtue of his dukedom, a member of the German Confederation, for Holstein is undoubtedly German. The Confederation, being a Board of Sovereigns, no fraction of the people having seat, voice, or influence therein, the princely envoys hate anything that savours of political liberty as intensely as the Lords of the Ad mirality hate a Committee of the House of Commons. As the Confedeiation has also the disposing power over the Geiman armies, itciushes out all constitution's and reforms that the people may have gained, or that a terror struck German sovereign may have given. And the attempts of the' King of Denmark to make his Holsteineis as fiee, politically, as the Danes themselves, have been fieicely resented by the Frankfort Society for the suppression of this political vice. The Holsteiners themselves, being Geunans, prefer German and Fiussian freedom, which is a sham, to Danish freedom, which ib a leality, and a blessing to the Scandinavian people, by which it is enjoyed. But any obliquity and abbuidity, in practice, may be expected, where there is a ixeiman University, and Kiel has one of these propaganda of obscurity. It in also a good seaport and harbour, the best on the whole coast of the Baltic ; and if Prussia could get nossession of it in the name of Geiman nationality, the German Confederation might, in time, have a fleet, its present naval force consisting of one admiial, decorated with the Red Eagle of the first class, and a flag. So Prussia, ever and anon, puts heiself at the head of Geiman liberalism — which means unlimited metaphysics and poetry — to lescuo the Holstein people from a Pailiament and freedom of the Press, and to get hold of Holstein itself and the port of Kiel. As Altona is on the southern border of Holstein. Rendsburg is on its noithein fiontier, which is formed by the rivet Eider. At this stream the ' King of Denmaik is released from his thraldom as a German duke ; on the norhern bank of the Eider commences Schleswig, also a dukedom, but not a German principality. And heie comes the pinch of the Schleswig- Holstein question. In the course of time, by the gradual influx of Germjtus, by the influence of the alliances of the Danish kings and nobility with German houses, and the appointment of German officials, about half of the old Danish Schleswig has become Germanised in language and in feeling. It has been a slow invasion on the Scandinavian race. And the question is, whether the change has alteied the right of the tenitorial sovereignty ? Does the soil attach the people, or the people convey the territory ' Holstein — that is to say, Prusia — contends that the two duchies not only ought to be united, but that they have been so, and that the German Confederation ought to dictate the constitutions and government of both. Denmark asserts stoutly that Schleswig is and shall remain Danish teiritoiy, and that sentimental grievances about language cannot annul an ancient soverignty, one older than the present German languageitself ; in all other respects, injfinance, in administration, in freedom of discussion, in personal liberty, the Danish Constitution is far superior to that of any Geiman state whatever. To any people brought under the leaden rule of the German Confederation, real fieedom is impossible. That miserable club of soveieigns always sitting at Frankfort is a body that ensures to a nation misgovernment in time of peace, and a defeat and disaster in war. Every constitution, born of 1848, it has destroyed. If a prince is liberal the Confedeiation puts in an "execution,"' in the shape of a military force, to bring him to his senses. If a people riseagamst a degrading oppression, the same force crushes them. And it is under this German cuise and blight that the hypocritical despotism of Prussia wishes Denmark to allow the finest part of its kingdom to pass I As Duke of Holstein, the King of Denmark cannot resist the military power that can march ninety thousand men into Holstein. The German usurpation is backed by a nationality o forty millions, so Denmark has to meet the threats of a power, so much greater than huiself that threats become those of a mere bully. The poweis of Europe ought to support the gallant little Scandinavian kingdom in maintaining " Denmark to the Eider," at least. If language only is to decide the political sovereignty, and draw the fiontiers of States, Fiance could claim Wales from us as pait of Brittany. And what would be the gain of the Welsh if they changed the British Constitution for the Imperial despotism « The cases of Schleswig and Wales are not dissimiliar in principle, for whether one language is spoken on both sides of a channel of the sea, or on both banks of a river the soverignty of another race is an equal violation of strict nationality. But the " national" cry is in Germany only a disguise of aggression on a small power. It is not raised against a more signal violation of Germanism by France. Alsace was a part of the old German Empire, and it was seized and annexed by Louis XIV. Schleswig has been Danish for a thousand years, and its Germanism is only an accident of time. Let Germany fight out its nationality with an equal ; let Piussia maich an aimy on Strasburg, and rescue Alsiice from the tyranny of French genders and tenses ; Germany dares not attempt it. And the chances are that while she is reclaiming half a duchy from Denmaik, she will lose the whole of the Rhine provinces to an Emperor who has said he will not permit any state to extend its present frontiers without a " compensating" territory being added to Fiance — Nice and Savoy to wit ' The persistent blundering of German policy will probably lead the " nationality" into a contest from which it will come out less by two or three millions than when it began. Let a Prussian* division thread the gate of Altona, an-l the French columns will be crossing the Rhine ! That will be the issue to Germany of its senseless aggresion on Denmark.

Sheridan and thp Boots. . — He had always a taste for the art of duping, and he had begun early in life — soon after leaving Harrow. He was spending a few days at Bristol, and wanted a pair of new boots, but could not afford to pay for them. Shortly before he left, he called on two bootmakers, and ordered of each a pair, promising payment on delivery. He fixed the morning of his departure for the tradesmen to send in their goods. When the first arrived he tried on the boots, and complained that that for the right foot pinched a little, and ordered Crispin to take it back again, stretch it, and bring it again at nine the next morning. The second arrived soon after, and this time it was the boot for the left foot which pinched. Same complaint ; same order given ; each had taken away only the pinching boot, and left the other behind. The same afternoon Sheridan left in his new boots for town, and when the two shoemakers called at nine next day, each with a boot in his hand, we can imagine their disgust at finding how neatly they had boon duped. — Wits and Beans of Society. |