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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



ling, may have Ultramontane proclivities ; but 

 Socialism, as a faith, does not affect any sympathy 

 with its temporary ally. German workmen for 

 the most part abhor passionately but impartially 

 all forms of religion, as all alike setting up stand- 

 ards which are not the one sole principle of So- 

 cialism ; but if the Ultramontanes will assist in 

 pulling down the established order, Social Democ- 

 racy is serenely indiiferent to the aspirations they 

 harbor for the constitution of a new order. The 

 great commercial and political centres, such as 

 Berlin, Hamburg, Breslau, Elberfeld, Bremen, and 

 Liibeck, are the congenial soil of Socialism. But 

 there are also special districts of Germany where 

 the nature of the industry, and dynastic or other 

 local circumstances, promote its growth. Saxony, 

 for instance, returned seven of the twelve Social- 

 ist deputies. In Schleswig-Holstein, the peasant- 

 ry, who hate administration from Berlin, favor it; 

 and, oddly enough, a relic of old-world German 

 feudalism, the tiny principality of Reuss of the 

 elder branch, has been represented by a Socialist. 

 In some discontented quarters of the empire So- 

 cialism shows no parliamentary strength. But it 

 is only that those regions happen to be agitated 

 by some other supreme element of active resist- 

 ance to the German Government. The element 

 of Separatism carries the vote of Alsace-Lorraine, 

 and Ultramontanism has left no room in Bavaria 

 for Socialist deputies. The Bavarian Most has 

 had to find a seat not in his own country, but in 

 Saxony. But both Bavaria and Alsace-Lorraine 

 have sent allies of the Socialist cause ; and when 

 the movements which now control them lull, it is 

 feared that the Socialist element may show an in- 

 dependent vitality which now helps to swell the 

 local spirit of opposition to German patriotism. 



The attempts, last May, by Hodel, and, in 

 June, by Nobiling, on the life of the emperor, are 

 likely to prove a heavy blow to Socialism, and to 

 thwart the very confident expectation of German 

 revolutionists that Social Democracy, at the next 

 general election to the Reichstag, will show as 

 great a proportional progression as at that of 

 1877. Should the effect of those mad' crimes 

 have indeed passed off before the elections, and 

 should Social Democracy exhibit only the same 

 increase as at the last elections, of three members, 

 it would have gained an advantage of an impor- 

 tance not at all to be gauged by mere numbers. 

 In the German Parliament, which has a natural 

 dread of obstructives, an " interpellation " re- 

 quires for its introduction the concurrence of not 

 fewer than fifteen deputies. As the Social Demo- 

 crats in the late Reichstag were only twelve, they 



were unable to bring on a debate at discretion 

 upon the first principles of society and property. 

 With fifteen members the parliamentary agitation 

 would begin, and the world, whether to the ad- 

 vancement of the Socialist cause or not, would 

 learn many startling axioms which now can be 

 debated only within the comparatively exclusive 

 circle of workmen. Perhaps, however, even of 

 more practical importance than the parliamentary 

 strength of the party are its ambition and success 

 in working its way into local administrative bod- 

 ies. Very many Englishmen who would be panic- 

 struck at the choice of a workman for alderman 

 welcomed with pleasure the election of Messrs. 

 Burt and Macdonald as in some sort parliamen- 

 tary representatives of British labor. But in 

 Wiirtemberg, Saxony, Hesse, and Holstein, So- 

 cialists have been elected to communal offices. 

 Herr Bamberger relates, with an apparent sense 

 that the world is coming to an end, that in one 

 Wiirtemberg town, Esslingen, actually a Socialist 

 was chosen burgomaster, though the country was 

 saved by the Wiirtemberg Government refusing 

 to ratify the election. 



The formidable peculiarity of German Social- 

 ism, as compared with trade-unionism elsewhere, 

 is, that it has already constituted an imperium in 

 imperio, a regular and ordered society, with all 

 the apparatus of modern life, including a periodi- 

 cal press. The Voriviirts, which is published at 

 the office of the Leipsic Socialist press, where 

 Hbdel was employed, is the recognized and offi- 

 cial organ of German Socialism. It has 12,000 

 subscribers. But forty-one other Socialist jour- 

 nals are published in Germany, without counting 

 an illustrated journal of belles-lettres, Die neue 

 Welt, the largely-circulated calendar called "Poor 

 Conrad," and fourteen industrial papers more or 

 less of a Socialist character. The pamphlets pro- 

 pounding Socialist views are numberless. Of the 

 forty-one political organs of German Socialism, 

 thirteen appear daily, thirteen three times, three 

 twice, eleven once a week, and the Zukunft, which 

 treats Socialism scientifically, once a month. A 

 large number of these are printed in presses be- 

 longing to Socialist bodies. In 1876 the hand- 

 book to last year's congress at Gotha states that 

 the Socialist newspaper press possessed 100,000 

 subscribers; but in 1877, according to the same 

 authority, the number had risen to 135,000. 



Almost more alarming to Herr Bamberger 

 than the direct forces of Socialism is the indirect 

 influence it wields. Its open organs in the press 

 are, he thinks, comparatively weak auxiliaries to 

 the general newspaper press of Germany, which 



