CHAPTER XIV.
Which is serious: as becomes a parting chapter--The German from the Anglo- Saxon's point of view--Providence in buttons and a helmet--Paradise of the helpless idiot--German conscience: its aggressiveness--How they hang in Germany, very possibly--What happens to good Germans when they die ?--The military instinct: is it all-sufficient ?--The German as a shopkeeper--How he supports life--The New Woman, here as everywhere--What can be said against the Germans, as a people--The Bummel is over and done.
"Anybody could rule this country," said George; "_I_ could rule it." We were seated in the garden of the Kaiser Hof at Bonn, looking down upon the Rhine.

It was the last evening of our Bummel; the early morning train would be the beginning of the end.
"I should write down all I wanted the people to do on a piece of paper," continued George; "get a good firm to print off so many copies, have them posted about the towns and villages; and the thing would be done." In the placid, docile German of to-day, whose only ambition appears to be to pay his taxes, and do what he is told to do by those whom it has pleased Providence to place in authority over him, it is difficult, one must confess, to detect any trace of his wild ancestor, to whom individual liberty was as the breath of his nostrils; who appointed his magistrates to advise, but retained the right of execution for the tribe; who followed his chief, but would have scorned to obey him.

In Germany to-day one hears a good deal concerning Socialism, but it is a Socialism that would only be despotism under another name.

Individualism makes no appeal to the German voter.

He is willing, nay, anxious, to be controlled and regulated in all things.