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GERMANY. 



p 

 I 



delay a bill which would realize the right to 

 labor proclaimed by the Chancellor. 



In the new accident-insurance bill the quota 

 which, in the earlier form of the proposition, 

 the imperial exchequer was to contribute, was 

 left out. The business is organized on the 

 system of mutual insurance between the em- 

 ployers in the industries indicated in the act. 

 All the employers throughout the empire in 

 each branch unite in a trade association. The 

 various industrial employments are grouped 

 and graded into different classes of risks. All 

 employers must report the nature of their busi- 

 ness and the number of laborers they employ 

 to an Imperial Insurance Office at Berlin, which 

 superintends and controls the assessment and 



ayment of damages by the trade associations. 



n the investigation of accidents committees of 

 workmen take part. General provisions in the 

 act regulate the amount of damages in cases 

 of injury and death. 



The Joint-Stock Law. A bill was passed by 

 the Reichstag, on the proposal of the Govern- 

 ment, which subjects joint-stock companies 

 and Bourse transactions to a strict control. 

 Among other provisions there is one that 

 makes the circulation of false reports affecting 

 the values of stocks an indictable offense. The 

 Government, in another bill, proposed to draw 

 a large revenue from stock- exchange transac- 

 tions, and at the same time restrain speculation 

 by imposing a tax of 2 per mille on all sales of 

 snares and bonds and other Bourse transac- 

 tions. By the law passed in 1881, a fixed tax 

 of 20 pfennigs is collected on every cash bar- 

 gain, and one of one mark on every time or 

 speculation sale. 



The Niederwald Anarchist Plot. After the un- 

 veiling of the Niederwald national monument 

 in 1883 it was discovered through the revela- 

 tions of an informer that a quantity of dyna- 

 mite had been deposited in a drain-pipe, with 

 the intention of assassinating the Emperor, the 

 Crown Prince, and the other royal persons, 

 high officers of state, and distinguished politi- 

 cians present. The conspirators were brought 

 to trial at Leipsic in December. The leader, 

 Friedrich August Reinsdorf, was a compositor, 

 of excellent personal character and popular 

 with his fellow-workmen, but a political fanat- 

 ic who, had frequently been in prison and un- 

 der police surveillance for political offenses. 

 He was eloquent, and possessed an active and 

 acute mind and a remarkable power of ascend- 

 ency over the minds of others. The other 

 principals were Rupsch and Kuchler, the for- 

 mer a mere boy, who made a confession to the 

 authorities implicating his accomplices, but ex- 

 cusing himself with the plea that he did not 

 ignite the fuse, as he was appointed to do, but 

 undertook and pretended to do so for the pur- 

 pose of saving the Emperor's life, and in order 

 to witness the ceremonies without expense. 

 According to. his story, Reinsdorf unfolded the 

 plot in September, 1883, to his fellow-Anarch- 

 ists at Barmen, where they all resided. Rupsch 



and Kuchler were intrusted with its execution. 

 They raised the money for the journey with 

 difficulty among themselves. Arriving the 

 day before the dedication of the monument, 

 they deposited the dynamite in accordance 

 with Reinsdorf s directions. There was four 

 pounds of the explosive in a stone bottle. 

 Rupsch declared that he and Kuchler stood 

 together in the crowd over the fuse, and when 

 the imperial party approached he stooped 

 down as though to fire the fuse with a cigar, 

 but that the cigar was not lighted. As Kuch- 

 ler insisted on making another attempt, he said 

 that he secretly cut the fuse. They took up 

 the dynamite and Kuchler afterward fired it at 

 Rudesheim near the grand pavilion where a 

 concert was going on, causing a tremendous 

 explosion but injuring no one. Kuchler told 

 a similar story in which he played the part of 

 the savior of the Emperor's life and tried to 

 shift the guilt upon Rupssh. Reinsdorf made 

 a full admission of the part he was accused of 

 taking in the conspiracy. He said that he had 

 sent Rupsch because he was himself in the hos- 

 pital confined with a sprained ankle, Kiichler 

 going along as a moral support. The object 

 was a demonstration that would show the 

 deep-rooted discontent of the masses and has- 

 ten a change of government. He willingly 

 risked his own life and did not regard the sac- 

 rifice of the lives of a few princes as a matter 

 of importance compared with the end to be 

 gained. Reinsdorf had been all over Germany 

 and in various other parts of Europe, and had 

 been expelled from several towns for teaching 

 his revolutionary doctrines. He had held re- 

 lations with Hodel, who attempted to assas- 

 sinate the Emperor, and with Most, the editor 

 of the "Freiheit." Reinsdorf and the other 

 two principals were sentenced to death ; Bach- 

 inann, one of the same band, who at Reins- 

 dorf s instigation had exploded a can of dyna- 

 mite in a restaurant at Elberfeld, and Holz- 

 hauer, who was accused of furnishing the dy- 

 namite for the Niederwald attempt, were sen- 

 tenced to imprisonment for ten years. The 

 judges concluded on the evidence that the 

 train had been ignited but only burned to the 

 middle, being moist from the rain that fell 

 during the entire night. 



The Kraszewski Trial. A remarkable political 

 trial took place at Leipsic in May before the 

 Supreme Court ot the Empire. Joseph Kras- 

 zewski, one of the most distinguished of Polish 

 authors, and a former captain in the Prussian 

 army named Hentsch were prosecuted for high 

 treason, their offense consisting in revealing 

 military secrets of the German Government to 

 the French authorities. The Chancellor, in a 

 communication to the war department, made 

 the following statement as to the nature of the 

 conspiracy in which the aged Polish poet and 

 novelist was engaged. A society of Polish 

 military men in Paris was formed in 1864, 

 which had for its object the restoration of the 

 kingdom of Poland, and with that view stud- 



