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o public function exercised on behalf of those who elect ? If the former be legitimate as a means of rersonal advancement in social or political life , there is of course little more to be said upon the , Wfer only that it would have been better in that case that the Reform Bill of 1 S 32 had never passed , nnd it would be clearly absurd that any more rotten borouja should be destroyed in 1859 . When -x roau enters upon any personal speculation it is quite natural that he should prepare to invest so . much capital in order to establish Jus position . If a man ' s object be to earn a baronetcy , to obtain admission by marriage with the aristocratic pale , to attain political office , or , mayhap , to win a coronetit is a matter of course that he
t rust . It is , in a word , a means of fortifying anew the monopoly of class , and reasserting the humiliation of intellect , industry , and worth .
, should commence his speculative operations by sinkin" - 2000 / . or 5000 / . in contesting a borough—8000 / . ° 10 , 000 / ., if necessary , in securing a scat for the county .. This is the outlay of capital in , the regular and appointed way . The men who are ready to " do so are booked , as is well known , at the great party clubsj where the traffic in scats is carried on , and previous to any general election , those who have agreed to pay the appointed price sally for th and hoist their electioneering colours , with the secretly arranged guarantee of support from all the noble and honourable jobbers of influence on their ¦
respective sides . But , in the name of common sense and common ' Honesty , ' arc these men candidates selected by the constituencies ? Have they been selected , in point of fact , at all ? Or are they not really neither more nor less than . self-suggested nominees of irresponsible cliques , who come swaggering into the ring , prepared to bully and browbeat all competitors by dint of lavish expenditure , and relying upon their money , and what their money has secured for them in the way of influence , alone ? It is an utter farce to say that the electors have sought out and found such men , and
resolve to make them their representatives ; these men have sought out and found the constituencies , and have resolved politically to squat thereupon . If any score or two of electors , apprehending such an invasion and usurpation , put their heads together beforehand , and resolve to put forward a man who would really represent the place , they are appalled by the prospect of the expense . They know that the man who is best worth seeking for and best worth having , will not gamble away his fortune in an infamous coinr petition with a high-born or opulent political speculator ; and they know well the difficulty of meeting lavish
expenditure with any other weapons than those employed against them . The men of Sheffield , Manchester Bristol , Birmingham ' , Bath , and other places , have indeed done themselves infinite honour by returning men of their choice , and voluntarily raising , by contributions amongst themselves , the means of securing their return . But where there has not been an equally active spirit of self-assertion , the largest aud richest constituencies have been treated again and again-as mere carrion , over which the birds of prey and unclean beasts of electioneering have snricked and fought , and of which they have made their prey . As if the evil were not great enough already , additional excuses
for corrupt expenditure were deliberately invented and enaoted last session ; and if tjic detestable- act which sanctions the carry ingof every voter to the poll who is mean and base enough to accept the punctumelious favour be not repealed , we shall , no doubt , have in many places a revolting' exaggeration next time of all the mischiefs and scandals of the system . But if , on the other hand , representation be a high and sacred publio trust , and if the representative when qhosen is logally and morall y to be regarded as a trustee for those who elect him , then before all other things it is surely necessary that in selecting candidates the choice of tho constituents should bo unrestricted by any menu and miserable considerations like those above named . The best
and truest sjstcm would bo that which defrayed the necessary coat of elections nt the publio charge , and which rendered illegal tho outlay of any considerable sum by a candidate , whether provably oxpondod for purposes of corruption or not . As tho law now stands , there is literally no limit to oleotionocring prodigality ; and .. the ruling olnss , if suffered to tal $ o their Own w i will manifestly add oycry year to the expense ofplcotions * Tho design is not denied or even disguised . It is practically a solicmo of counter tJtiafoanohisomont , and ft very effectual one too , for H utterl y provonts many of our best constituencies worn selecting candidates or electing inombora such wihoy could justly fool any prido in , or sincerely
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BIOGEAPHIES OF GEE-MAM" PBItfCES Ko . VIII . FITTED RICH FRANZ , GRAND-DUKE OF
MECKLENBURG ^ SCHWERIN . The rulers of the two principalities of Meckienburg-Schweriri and Mecklenburg-Strelitz , have for a considerable time rendered themselves notorious by their disposition to semi-arbitrary , semi-patriarchal government , by their lavish personal expenditure , through which the country has become deeply involved in debt ; by their laxity of life and . -morals , which has given birth to many a pungent satire ; and by the Russian sympathies which distinguish them even amoncr that philo-Muscovite fraternity , the petty sovereigns of Germany . These peculiarities of the race are by no means wanting in Friedrich Franz , the present Grand-Duke of Meeklenburg-Schwerin . ¦ '
Of his early youth , all that cau . be said is , that it passed away in that insignificant manner which forms at the same time the characteristic and the bane of all princely education in Germany . From 1823 , the year of his birth , to 1 S 38 , he remained in the paternal palace under the charge of tutors , whose ' bounden duty it was to carefully instil into him as inflated an idea as possible of . the unlimited nature of his rights arid privileges as future sovereign ,, and to render the very restricted royal road to knowledge which a ' German monarch generally for the
On these unwritable matters we had better preserve the rule we have laid down when speaking , in former biographies , of the private life of German princes—viz . to pass over the subject as quickly as possible , and to confine ourselves to the marital unions officially recorded in the Gol / ia Almanac ^ Friedrich Franz , then , is married to the Princess Augnste Mathilde Wilhelmine , daughter of the late Henry the Sixty-third of Keuss-Schleiz-Kqestritz , a petty dynasty wliich boasts of a . pedigree dating from almost antediluvian ages , but whose territories , a German saying informs us ,, " can be put in a rat-hole , " or , as Heine has it ,. " stick sometimes to the boots of the traveller . "
To those of our readers not erudite in the mysteries of heraldic lore , and who , therefore , will be puzzled to understand the meaning of the number sixty-three appended to the name of the father of the Grand-Duchess of Mecklenburg , we will explain that , for centuries past , all the male offshoots of the different Houses of Reuss receive the baptismal cognomen of Henry , and that they are all duly numbered , irrespective of the reigning head of the family . It is stipulated that the elder branch is thus to count as far as a hundred ( C . ) , and then to recommence with number I . I This will give a clue to the formidable array of Roman figures tacked to those Henrys of Reuss , Reuss-Greiz ,. Reuss-Schleiz , Reuss-Lobenstein , Reus-Koestritz ,. Reuss-Koestritz-Koestritz , and so forth . There
is one among this noble army of Henrys now living who rejoices in the numerals XiXXIV . The race is altogether famous for the eccentricity of itsmembers . A few years before 181 S , the most serene Henry the Seventy-second informed his subjects that" he ¦ had at last discovered the true system of government , " after having for twenty years galloped about an his principte " But td _ return to the Grand-Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin . In 184 S he was overtaken , like all his purple-clad brethren , by the revolutionary storm .. It burst upon him the more unexpectedly as his people had been held in such long and thoroughsubjection that their capacity for resistance might
well have been doubted . The peasantry—that longsuffering , sturdy population of Mecklenburgwhich had hitherto been the s ^ drt and prey of every Junker and arrogant bailiff , suddenly exhibited rather ugly signs of acting for themselves ; Thfr better portion of the middle classes , also , were up and stirring . Friedrich Franz and his pack of Hitters had to give in to the popular demands . Feudalism , in its most repulsive forms , was destroyed .. A " Constituent Assembly" rose in Mecklenburg whose first business it was to abolish mediaeval privileges , and to settle the institutions of the country on a new basis . In the following years of reaction , Friedricfo
Franz eagerly lent his hand to the overthrow of tlierevolutionary conquests . His troops took part in the campaign against the popular movement of Baden and the Palatinate , but a very scanty allowance of laurels fell to their share . They were rather roughly handled . by the democratic insurgents , and lost men and guns with an inconvenient rapidity . During ; the late Russian war , however , the Grand-Dukewas again seized with another martial fit . Absurdly enough , he , of all German princes , declared at the Diet of Frankfort for an active support of the Czar Nicholas , whilst the other German Governments advised a strict neutrality . This little performance in tho Bbmbastos line was , of course , a very safe ono for the illustrious warrior , and attended with .
no risk to his royal person or property . The Grand-Duko felt pretty certain that he should bo in an immense minority , and his fire-eating proposals , never likely to bo put to the tost . So ho calculated on making a favourable impression on the Czar of all tho llussias by an exhimtion of valour in hfe > behalf , that would cost very little and entail no unpleasant consequences . The connexion between tho Mecklenburg dynasty and Russia , it may bo said en passant' , is one of old * standing . Peter I . more than once entortained the
idea of buying in toto the Mecklenburg principality >¦ and , in fact , the purchase was near enough being completed . The descendants of the miserable huckster who had shown himself willing to entertain this proposal of barter , have on all emergencies , proved faithful to the spirit that animated their forefather . Tliero aro strong family tics , moroovor , which continue to keep t ) io two brandies of the dynasty at Schweriu and Strolitz in tho due observance of tho Muscovite formula . Thus tho late Mecklenburg prinoo , Fricdrioli Louis , was marnpd to Holona Paulowua , daughter of Paul I . oUliwaw .
treads as little tiresome as could be princely traveller . After this preliminary course , he was for a short time sent to Dresden to a private institute , and from thence to the university at Bonn , where he went through the usual programme of follies indulged in . by students with dynastic immunities . Scarcely , -, however , had he fairly plunged into , the vortex of frivolities , when he was suddenly snatched from the scene of his collegiate escapades , to be installed sovereign at Schwerin , where his father had unexpectedly .. expired , and left a crown » for the plaything of an inexperienced youth of nineteen
years . - This happened in 1 S 42 , since which time young Friedrich Franz has governed his principality in the real old style of the Mecklenburg patriarchs . It ought to be here observed that but few German countries have furnished a more convenient soil for tlic growth of paternal despotism than this blessed Mecklenburg , which * before 1848 , was in itself a rococo world in miniature . The peasantry were there kept under the lash more stringently than in the eastern provinces of Prussia , where the Junkers ruled , at that time , almost omnipotent . The towns ,
though possessing some remnants of mediaeval privileges , had for the most part succumbed to the in ^ fluence of that antiquated spirit of political beadledom , which the Germans designate under the untranslatable monosyllable of Zopf . There was an easy-going , ncver-hurry way of doingj things at Mecklenburg , which made it the laughing-stock of tho slowest third-rate residence of a petty German sovereign . A pudding-headed race of noble landed proprietors stretched itself in impudent sufferance on the benches of the Diet , treating with cavalier contempt the canaille of the towns and villages . Tho political atmosphere of the country was quite opaque wjth tho misty traditions of the past . It was as if Mecklenburg had been preserved by artificial means to afford this modern generation an amusing tablectit virnttt of pig-tailed customs and manners ,
which had long since been swept into limbo m other parts of tho world . Our Friodrioh Franz , fresh from tho comment , with his " conuuilitonca" of Bonn , exhibited a wonderful aptitude in assuming the gonuine oldfashioned airs of government . Ho oarricd on the administration with ' a vigorous application of the accustomed ' patriaroh . nl and burcaucratio whip , and tho good Mecklenburg " Dobbin" trottodon quietly enough , showing only by nn occasional kick that even his amount of patience was noarly expended . Moanwhile , our giddy ytfung prjnco lived gaily , and enjoyed himself to tlio full of his bent * keeping up the reputation gained by hia ancoslor of tho same name , whom tho popular song described as
Moeklonburtj ' a Friorirlch Wrnnz , Vdtor doa Vntorlnmlau oouplut that gives a mcnuinir to tho designation of " Fathov of the Fatherland , which it would bo highly irrcvorcntial in us to explain hero more fully .
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^ A . M ¦ ¦ ' ¦ Jahita » y 1 . 1860 . 1 - .. ' . THE EEAIPEB . 19
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 1, 1859, page 19, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2275/page/19/
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