THROUGH CONTINENTAL EUROPE. 
845 
than the year 1866. That was remarkable for the disasters and destruction 
it brought; this has been signalized by a new and more liberal policy that 
may be justly considered as the turning point in her history. Having long 
tried in vain the policy of centralization with the determined purpose to fuse 
all the seventeen crown lands into one complete and perfect empire, the gov¬ 
ernment has decided to try the policy of assortment, and a division of the 
empire into two administrations and two parliaments—the German and Slavic 
with the parliament at Vienna, and the Hungarian, (embracing Hungary? 
Transylvania, Croatia and Slavonia,) with the parliament located at Pesth. 
The affairs of each division are to be managed by the parliament and minis 
try for that division, while the affairs common to all are to be under a cen¬ 
tral ministry. The first German Austrian parliament was being convened 
when I was at Vienna, with a promise of good results. The presidents of both 
houses have been for years prominent leaders of the Liberal party and are 
both resolutely determined to establish reforms that shall insure the harmony, 
prosperity and future glory of the empire. The opening address of the Pres¬ 
ident of the Lower House gave an earnest of better days and rekindled the 
fires of hope in many a Liberal breast. “The principles of equal rights for 
all nationalities and all religious, as well as real constitutional government 
must become actualities, and the compromise with Hungary must be equita¬ 
bly carried out in both portions of the empire.” 
On the 22d of May, the Emperor, direct from his coronation as King at 
the capital of Hungary, at the opening of parliament, declared it to be his 
urgent care that no portion of the empire should complain of being dispro¬ 
portionately taxed, and entreated both houses to throw a veil of forgetful¬ 
ness over the immediate past, which had inflicted deep wounds upon the em¬ 
pire, but to lay to heart the important lessons it had left for them. Hope for 
Austria yet, and, thank God! relief, at last, for long oppressed Hungary! 
From Prague, past the famous field of Sadowa, into the wonderful little 
Kingdom of Saxony—once the proudest of the German powers, and still re¬ 
markable for the productiveness of its varied industry, the number and high 
character of its public and special schools, and its unsurpassed collection of 
master pieces in art. Dresden, to one who has been there, is synonomous 
with industry, intelligence and art. Its picture gallery and its vast collee- 
tions of precious minerals are sufficient, of themselves, to warrant a long 
journey to visit them. Visited the polytechnic and military academies, the 
college of surgery, attended divine services at the great Domkirche, where 
the presence of the King and Queen and the wonderful music by the orches¬ 
tra of fifty singers and instrumentalists were the principal attractions. Vis¬ 
ited the school of forestry at'fharand and the noted mining school at Freiberg 
in the midst of the silver mines of Saxony, some 26 miles from Dresden, and 
then made my way to Leipsic, seat of the book trade and one of the most 
famous ancient universities. 
Thence to the old university town of Halle and the new and excellent 
agricultural school of the university near by, under the directorship of the 
