movement. Dr. Parkhurst was called before the grand jury to prove his words, but he was obliged to admit that all he knew was the repeated accusations that appeared in almost every local newspaper. Thereupon the grand jury publicly rebuked him, and sent a formal presentment to the Recorder declaring their 'disapproval and condemnation' of the sermon. Every one at once concluded that no more would be heard of Parkhurst in politics, but they did not know the man. The clergyman called a couple of detectives to his aid, and personally visited the lowest resorts, to obtain the necessary evidences of corruption. A month later he preached a second political sermon, and this time he took into the pulpit with him a bundle of affidavits. He repeated and emphasised his former accusations, and again he was summoned before the grand jury. This time the result was different. The police are either incompetent or corrupt,' the jury declared, and citizens generally agreed.

It

The Tammany authorities did not sit idle. A few months later one of Parkhurst's assistants was arrested on a trumped-up charge of perjury, and convicted. Finally, in 1894, the State Senate again appointed a committee, this time under Senator Lexow, to inquire into New York municipal affairs. Soon after the committee was appointed Mr. Croker found it convenient to hastily resign the leadership of Tammany and go to Europe. The worst accusations of the bitterest enemies of Crokerism were almost all more than substantiated by the evidence given before the committee. was found that the police were utterly corrupt, that they extorted blackmail from gambling house keepers, women of ill fame, saloon keepers, and others, and in return gave them their protection. Even thieves, in some instances, were found to be regularly paying their police dues in return for immunity from arrest. One police justice had to admit that he received a hundred dollars from a keeper of a disorderly house. Everywhere that the Lexow Committee probed, or that other competent critics examined, the same thing was found. For several years New York had been living under a system of universal blackmail. Saloon keepers had to pay Tammany to be allowed to evade the Sunday closing law, merchants to be granted the simplest conveniences for getting their goods into their premises. But in the case of Mr. Croker no dishonesty could be proved. It was known that he had in a few years risen from a poor man to a millionaire, but in no instance could it be shown that he had acquired this wealth by corruption. His friends said he had made his money by horse-racing and real estate speculation, but unfortunately Mr. Croker did not go before the witness stand to finally clear up the matter. While the committee was sitting he remained in Europe.

The usual storm of indignation followed the Lexow' exposure, and most reputable citizens united once more to overthrow Tammany.

Colonel Strong, a well-known banker, was chosen reform candidate for mayor, and secured a majority of fifty thousand. In 1895 he began his administration, and initiated a vigorous reform movement. The police force was entirely reorganised; municipal offices were given for merit rather than political reward; the streets, for the first time in the memory of the oldest inhabitant, were really kept clean, and the whole local government was taken out of politics. Mayor Strong's time of office has not been without its faults, but among those faults dishonesty has not been one. Rather the mistake has been to enforce all laws too rigidly, and make too few allowances for the weaknesses of human nature in a cosmopolitan resort. Police President Roosevelt's strict enforcement of the Sunday closing and social purity laws was only his duty, but yet it cost the reformers many votes.

Although the report of the 'Lexow' Committee did Tammany much temporary harm it recovered quickly. After the mayoral defeat of 1894 it pulled its forces together again, and rallied around it all the ambitious men who were disappointed in Mayor Strong's bestowal of his patronage. In the autumn of 1895 it was able to score a minor victory at the polls, and it carefully nursed its strength for the election of November 1897. Mr. Croker, notwithstanding his repeated declarations that he was 'out of politics,' came back to New York, and at once took over command of his party. The fourcornered fight that followed enabled Tammany to exercise its power to the best effect. New York is so strongly Democratic a city that it is only by a union of reform forces that the opponents of the Democratic machine can hope ever to carry the day. This fact was realised in 1894; in 1897 it was ignored. Mr. Platt, the head of the Republican machine, piqued because the reformers acted independently of him and would not promise the Republicans preference in bestowing municipal office, set up a Republican candidate, General Tracy, in opposition to the reform nominee, the Hon. Seth Low. The independent Democrats, who opposed Tammany, would not support Low because, though he was a reformer, he was also a Republican, and they nominated their own man, Henry George. It mattered nothing that the Tammany candidate, Judge van Wyck, was utterly unknown, a mere tool in the hands of Croker. The real question before the electors of New York was whether they again wanted Mr. Croker to rule over them or not. Judge van Wyck was almost ignored. The fight was almost entirely around the personality of the boss,' and the 'boss' won.

Tammany has now the opportunity to redeem its character. If it gives Greater New York an honest government, and performs one-half of the promises of probity and capacity made in its election addresses, much of its past will be forgiven and forgotten by the

world at large. But every prospect seems to point to its doing far otherwise. In Greater New York, with its three million people, its enormous patronage and immense revenue, an incapable or dishonest administration will have such power of plunder and wrong-doing as the Western world has never seen before. Even Tammany's worst enemies cannot but hope that for once it will disappoint the fears of its foes and the hopes of many of its baser friends.

FRED. A. MCKENZIE.

THE DANISH VIEW OF

THE SLESVIG-HOLSTEIN QUESTION

[The following reply to Professor Max Müller's article in the May number of this Review is published at the desire of an exalted Personage in this country, interested in the Danish side of the question, who considers that Professor Max Müller's views are incorrect and inconsistent with historic truth.

The author died before he saw the proofs, which have been submitted to and approved of by the same exalted Personage.-ED. Nineteenth Century.]

IN No. 243, May 1897, of this Review Professor Max Müller has written an article on 'The Schleswig-Holstein Question and its place in History.'

Professor Müller admits that a recent book, Schleswig-Holsteins Befreiung, by the late Professor Karl Jansen of Kiel and Karl Samwer, has furnished him with the main facts of his article. It seems strange that it should not have occurred to so learned and sagacious a man as Professor Müller that information derived from the University of Kiel-the headquarters of all the seditious writings against Denmark, the very university where the influence of the Augustenburg family always was paramount-ought necessarily to be examined with the utmost care and criticism. Professor Müller's German name and probable German origin do not a priori give a sufficient guarantee that he is able to form an unbiassed judgment of the contents of a book written by Denmark's bitterest enemies. It will be the object of the following lines to show that nearly all, and especially the most important facts in Denmark's favour have been -no doubt unintentionally-omitted, and that consequently Professor Müller's paper is thoroughly onesided, and cannot rank as historical evidence of events which after the lapse of so many years might quite well be investigated without any personal or political bias.

Professor Müller endeavours to show (1) that the German-Danish War was the Zündhölzchen (lucifer match) which was the real cause of subsequent events, viz. the Prusso-Austrian War in 1866, and the Franco-German War in 1870; (2) that the pretensions and rights to

the succession in the 'Duchies' (Slesvig and Holstein) clearly devolved on the Duke of Augustenburg; that these rights were acknowledged by the German Confederation and by the King of Prussia, Frederick William the Fourth; that only higher considerations of State induced Bismarck to thrust aside these rights of the Duke and finally, after the conquest of the Duchies, to incorporate them with Prussia. According to the Right Hon. Professor, Denmark clearly possessed no rights whatever, and consequently the dismemberment of the Danish Monarchy was a just and righteous act.

Prussian inter

As to (1) the Professor is no doubt right. ference was evidently a ballon d'essai of Bismarck's, intended to ascertain what he, unfettered by the other Powers, might venture to do.

The passivity of the Powers led him on further and further until he, as a condition of peace, had accomplished the surrender of both Duchies to Germany. This passivity of the Powers showed him that he need risk no interference in his endeavours to expel Austria from Germany, nor in his long-prepared war against France.

We do not believe that there lives a sensible English, Russian, or French statesman who does not now bitterly repent that their countries did not, at the time, stop the pretensions and soarings of the German eagle. It is not the dismemberment of the Danish Monarchy that weighs in the scale, but the creation of a powerful German fleet-rendered possible by the conquest. Germany now rules the Baltic; Germany's colonial enterprises are dependent on a strong fleet. It is impossible that either Russia or England should be overpleased by this state of things, which might have been prevented to a certain extent-by a little energy shown in time by Russia and England combined.

While, therefore, Professor Müller is right in pretending that the German-Danish War was at the bottom of the subsequent wars-and of Germany's unification-it does not absolutely follow that no attempt on Prussia's part to expel Austria or to attack France would or could have been made but for that war. That it gave an enormous impulse to what happened after, and greatly facilitated Prussia's enterprises, is certain.

As to (2) it requires a demonstration of some length to show how erroneous Professor Müller's opinions are, and to point out the facts which are of vital importance to the solution of the question of right-facts on which the Professor, strangely enough, hardly has touched.

It is an incredible naïveté of the great man of science to represent as a new discovery, made by himself or his referee (Professor