So AGRICULTURE OX THE RHISE. 



and with a regard to propi-iety that must call for admiration. 

 Although a newspaper is to be found in every village, 

 and transatlantic proceedings now interest nearly every 

 German family, yet politics are not much discussed until 

 they assume the tangible form of interfering with village 

 property. The disputed points respecting general or 

 provincial parliaments, freedom of the press, and consti- 

 tutions granted or subverted, do not, in the present state 

 of things, sufficiently excite the peasant, who is more on 

 his guard against innovators, and against other prepon- 

 derating influences in the state, than against the growth 

 of the prerogative. We have already attributed to this 

 village sj'stem the feeling of a separation of interests 

 which we have observed between the peasants and what 

 are called the higher classes. The tie arising from large 

 landed properties, for the privilege of using which the tenant 

 in England was long considered as indebted to the favour 

 of the landlord, is here not to be found. Every man usually 

 occupies his own land and lives in his own house — not so 

 comfortably as an Englishman often does in a house 

 that is rented— but, certainly, independently. On the 

 other hand, the ill-will that threatens from a pressing 

 demand for land for manufacturing purposes in England, 

 need not here be feared, for the minute division of the 

 land, united with the security conferred by the officially 

 registered titles, facilitates the necessary transfers. In the 

 small villages the police is left to the management of the 

 headborough, who receives his instructions from tiie 

 chief town of the circle, and the popular element in this 

 system reconciles the people to the strict registration of 

 the inhabitants, with their occupations, and property in 

 land and cattle, which is insisted upon. This registra- 



