the fatherless Duke of Albany.  It was precisely on the same ground that the Duke of Cumberland declined to complete the agreement whereby a reconciliation was to be effected between himself and the kaiser.  Born crown prince of the now defunct Kingdom of Hanover, he should have succeeded to the throne of the Duchy of Brunswick on the death of his kinsman, the late Duke of Brunswick, in 1884.  The German Emperor, however, decided that he could not be permitted to take possession of the sovereignty of the duchy, nor to assume the status of one of the federal rulers of the confederation known as the German Empire, unless he recognized the latter, as now constituted, that is to say with his father’s Kingdom of Hanover incorporated with Prussia.  For a long time he refused to do this, but was ultimately persuaded by his brother-in-law, the late czar, and the Prince of Wales, to consent to a reconciliation with Prussia, and to accept the present condition of affairs.  The arrangements were on the eve of being completed when a conflict arose between the duke and the kaiser, as to the education of the former’s eldest son, Prince George.  The duke wished to send him to the Vizhum College, at Dresden, where so many members of the sovereign families, and of the great houses of the nobility, have received their instruction, while the kaiser objected to this particular school on the ground that its teachings were calculated to increase instead of to diminish particularist and anti-Prussian sentiments.  The duke thereupon declared that he alone was competent to judge and determine how his boy should be educated, whereupon the kaiser put forth his pretension to the guardianship of all the junior members of the sovereign houses comprised in the German Empire.  Rather than consent to this, the Duke of Cumberland, who has inherited much of the obstinacy for which his great-grandfather, King George III. of Great Britain, was so celebrated, broke off all negotiations with Emperor William, and refused to have anything more to do with him, for, like his cousin, the Duke of Connaught, he would rather sacrifice his rights to a German throne than his parental rights over a much-loved boy.

But the despotism of the monarchs of the Old World is by no means restricted to this question of the control and custody of the junior members of their respective families.  Every prince and princess of the latter, no matter what his or her age, or superiority in point of years to the sovereign may be, is subjected to the will of the head of the house.  For instance, no Russian grand duke or grand duchess can leave the Muscovite empire without previously asking and obtaining the permission of the czar, and in the same way, the Austrian archdukes and archduchesses have to crave the sanction of Emperor Francis-Joseph, and the Prussian princes and princesses, that of the kaiser, before they can leave their respective countries for a foreign trip.  Even Empress Frederick is compelled to obtain the permission of her son, the emperor, before taking her departure from Germany for England or Italy, and a few years ago when quietly enjoying herself in Paris, she was forced by a peremptory command from her son to suddenly cut short her stay in the French capital, and to betake herself to England.