The Emperor of Austria is celebrating his silver wedding, and
Vienna has seized the opportunity to amuse itself. Grand pageants have been arranged by Austrian painters, in which all the kingdoms, provinces, nationalities, and races of the hetero- geneous Austrian Empire are represented in all the brilliancy that fine vehicles, splendid horses, characteristic dresses, and many-coloured crowds can be used to secure. As the Viennese are a joyous people, as the component divisions of the Empire are singularly varied, and as the fête ie a genuine one, the Emperor being popular among all his nations, a very striking fête will probably be organised, all the more striking because it may be the last. By the time the golden wedding comes round, the stage of civilisation in which such fetes are possible may have passed, even in Vienna, where an innate childlikeness of character will keep gladness possible longer than elsewhere. The fete may have all sympathy in England, for the Austrian monarchy has ceased to be cruel ; and it has the English task to perform, the government of multiform peoples, with a hampering condition from which we are free. The endless peoples under the Hapsburg sceptre want not only to be free, but to be equal. Their India—Hungary—has a foreign policy ; their Ireland—Bohemia—abstains from Parlia- ment ; their colonies—Croatia, Bosnia, Dalmatia, &c.—want to form a third kingdom in the Empire. .
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