ON PLAIN AND PEAK 



the happy possessor of a cow or pig, it is an absolute 

 certainty that he will arrange his estate so that the 

 house door opens directly on to the manure heap ! 



It is among the middle classes that socialism and 

 all its kindred branches have taken the deepest root ; 

 and, strangely enough, the societies of this ilk all 

 originate in the universities. "Is it not curious," 

 the Duke of Wellington once said, "that all the 

 mischief in Germany seems to have its rise in the 

 universities, while in this country we look to the 

 universities, and to the state of feeling there, as one 

 of our main sources of security ? " Exactly the same 

 thing holds good in Bohemia at the present time. 



The Slavs, as a race, are not handsome. A head 

 too large for the stunted body, high cheek-bones, a 

 dark muddy complexion, and coarse features, do not 

 tend to good looks either in the masculine or femi- 

 nine gender. A visitor to Prague will be struck, 

 not so much by the massive grandeur of its build- 

 ings, the old-world quaintness of its gloomy narrow 

 streets, the beauty of the old bridge, with its many 

 statues, that spans the turbid waters of the Mulda, 

 as by the extreme plainness of its inhabitants. 



The German- Bohemians of the north and west 

 are a totally different race. More thrifty than the 

 Slavs, they are therefore in better circumstances. 

 They are, as a whole, deeply attached to the 

 Emperor in person, and devoted to the maintenance 



4 



