The German Empire is like a big dog, placid under
everything but insult. A German squadron recently visited Samoa, deposed a King, and put up a Pretender, for no reason whatever, apparently, except that the King had "insulted " Emperor William. Next, the Empire sent, or asked permission to send, three ironclads to Rustchnk, to chastise a city in which an editor had published a story, tree or false, which involved a libel on the German Consul-General, and only pardoned Bulgaria after the Prefect of the city had been removed. Now, again, a small schoolboy of Lorraine, a son of M. Schnaebele, the official recently kidnapped on the frontier, has been caught patting up a placard insulting to Germany within the German frontier. He is imprisoned in the fortress of Metz, and is actually to be tried for that silly freak. We suppose, with a population of duellists, an Empire must show sensitiveness ; but even duellists think it decent to challenge only their equals. A "King " of Samoa, an editor in Bulgaria, the jnniorest Schnaebele, are rather small enemies for the German Empire to move squadrons and Courts of Antics in order to punish their rude remarks. Even the French do not exult in Schnaebele's silliness, and admit that it would be quite fair to set him a hundred lines. But imprisonment in a fortress !
Previous page
