AS MINISTER TO GERMANY- 1879-^81 537 



It sometimes seemed to me, while doing duty at the 

 German capital in those days as minister, and at a more 

 recent period as ambassador, that I could not enter my 

 office without meeting some vexatious case. One day it 

 was an American who, having thought that patriotism 

 required him, in a crowded railway carriage, roundly to 

 denounce Germany, the German people, and the imperial 

 government, had passed the night in a guard-house; an- 

 other day, it was one who, feeling called upon, in a res- 

 taurant, to proclaim very loudly and grossly his unfavor- 

 able opinion of the Emperor, had been arrested; on still 

 another occasion it was one of our fellow-citizens who, 

 having thought that he ought to be married in Berlin as 

 easily as in New York, had found himself entangled in a 

 network of regulations, prescriptions, and prohibitions. 



Of this latter sort there were in my time several curi- 

 ous cases. One morning a man came rushing into the 

 legation in high excitement and exclaimed, "Mr. Min- 

 ister, I am in the worst fix that any decent man was ever 

 in ; I want you to help me out of it. ' ' And he then went 

 on with a bitter tirade against everybody and everything 

 in the German Empire. When his wrath had effervesced 

 somewhat, he stated his case as follows : ' ' Last year, while 

 traveling through Germany, I fell in love with a young 

 German lady, and after my return to America became en- 

 gaged to her. I have now come for my bride ; the wedding 

 is fixed for next Thursday; our steamer passages are 

 taken a day or two later; and I find that the authorities 

 will not allow me to marry unless I present a multitude 

 of papers such as I never dreamed of; some of them it 

 will take months to get, and some I can never get. My in- 

 tended bride is in distress; her family evidently distrust 

 me; the wedding is postponed indefinitely; and my busi- 

 ness partner is cabling me to come back to America as 

 soon as possible. I am asked for a baptismal certificate 

 a Taufschein. Now, so far as I know, I was never bap- 

 tized. I am required to present a certificate showing the 

 consent of my parents to my marriage I, a man thirty 

 years old and in a large business of my own ! I am asked 



