The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1881-10-22 00:00:00

THE BIRTHDAY OF THE CROWN
PRINCE OF GERMANY.

The Daily Telegraph of Tuesday notices the celebration
of the birthday of the Crown Prince of Germany in a leader,
from which we make the following extracts :

To-day United Germany celebrates the fiftieth
natal anniversary of her future Emperor. Field.
Marshal his Imperial and Royal Highness Frederick
William Nicholas Charles, German and Prussian
Crown Prince, was born on the 18th of October, 1831.
In accordance with a Haus-Gesetz, or family ordin-
ance, established by Frederick William 1., and strictly
adhered to by that eccentric Monarch's successors,
the Prince entered the Prussian Army, as a second-
lieutenant of Guards, upon his tenth birthday,
and oommenced a military career, in the course
of -which he has achieved distinction, fully en-
titling him to rank among the ablest generals
of the nineteenth century. -The worthy scion of a
warrior race, he has, from early boyhood to ripe man-
hood, devoted his talents and energies without stint or
intermission to the service of his country, faithfully
following the splendid example set to him by his
illustrious father, who has been in harness since the
spring of 1807, and, should he live until next March,
will by that time have spent exactly three-quarters
of a century in the steadfast and unremitting
fulfilment of duty. Valour, industry, thrift,
and ardent patriotism have been family cha-
racteristics of the Hohenzollerns ever since Burgrave
Frederick, sixth of Nuremberg and first of Branden-
burg, transferred his dynasty from Suabia, to the
Wendish Marches ; but in no Prince of that ancient
and honourable House have these qualities been more
conspicuous than in the present Heir-Apparent to the
German throne. He has faced his country's foes, and
vanquished them, on many a fiercely-fought field. He
has worked his way upwards in the army from its
lowest to its highest grade, fairly earning each succes-
sive promotion by persistent application to his
duties
In all the relations of domestic life—as son, hus-
band, and father—the Crown Prince's conduct has
ever been unexceptionable: Adored by his parents,
he has amply repaid the care and solicitude they be-
stowed upon him during his early youth by realising
their very aspiration. Shortly after his birth, the
present Emperor, then Prince William of Prussia,
and himself only Heir Presumptive to the Prussian
throne, declared it his highest ambition that
his infant son might grow up to be a good
soldier, able and ready to render solid service to
his country in the troublous times preparing for
Europe in general and Germany in 'particular.
The venerable hero lived to see his beloved " Fritz "
lead Prussian hosts to victory after victory, and, a
still more glorious consummation of his wishes, to find
his own high appreciation of the Crown Prince's.mili-
tary capacities endorsed by the unanimous verdict of
the German nation. When, exactly four years after
the practical conclusion of the Seven Days' War, hos-
tilities became unavoidable between France and Ger-
many, it was to no inconsiderable extent in compliance
with the wishes of the minor German Sovereigns who
had unhesitatingly cast in their lot with Prussia
against the Fatherland's hereditary foe, that King
William appointed his heir to the command of the
Third Army, in which the leaders of Bavaria, Wuer-
temberg, Baden, and Hesse stood arrayed side by side
with Prussian cohorts, their whilom conquerors. So
widespread and sincere was the liking entertained
towards the Crown Prince throughout Southern Ger-
many—so great and genuine was his popularity among
Teutonic tribes to whom detestation of aught Prussian
was partly instinctive, partly the natural outcome of
all the defeats and humiliations inflicted upon them
during the Civil War of 1866—that his nomina-
tion to the leadership of the South German
contingents at once put them into good humour
with an enterprise for which they had hitherto
had but small stomach, and contributed mate-
rially to the achievement of that splendid and
complete reconciliation between North and South
which culminated, a few months later, in the trium-
phant unification of Germany under the Imperial
Crown. Magnificent as have been the Crown Prince's
military services to his native land, they have pro-
bably been surpassed in importance and value by
those he has rendered to Germany as a mediator
between conflicting national elements, an uprooter
of deep-seated prejudices, and a dissipator of time-
honoured though unwholesome delusions. His
manipulation of the heterogeneous forces submitted
to his sway was at once so delicate, firm,
and judicious that its effects facilitated the ac-
complishment of Prince Bismarck's grand Imperial
project to a degree scarcely realised at the time
by any of the subordinate actors in the stupendous
drama of 1870-1. His chivalrous and cheerful courage
in the presence of danger, his frank cordiality to his
comrades of all ranks, his genial smile and gay, kindly
humour, his incessant solicitude for the welfare of the
soldier—even his noble presence and gallant bearing
rendering him, as it were, the incarnation of the
German heroic ideal—proved irresistible alike to
Bavarian and Badenser, Wurtemberger and Hessian,
however inveterate might have been their antagonism
to Prussia and the Hohenzollern. In a word, Prince
Fritz conquered his own countrymen as well as the
luckless French eleven year ago, subduing the hearts
of the former as completely as he overcame the armies
of the latter. . • .

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which is also the anniversary of the battle of Leipsic, the
German Crown Prince entered his 50th year, and the occa-
sion was observed with even more than the usual loyalty.
All the town fluttered with bunting, and every journal
In the capital laid its votive offering at the feet of his
Highness in affectionate nay, almost adoring prose
and verse. The Prince received the usual domestic
and other congratulations at Potsdam, and in the evening
their Highnesses gave a ball at the New Palace, to which
about 300 of the ilite of the Court, military, and official
won', were invited. Prince William, who had returned from
the Duke of Coburg-Gotha's hunting seat in the Tyrol in
honour of the occasion, will now exchange from the Foot
Guards into the Hussars of the Guard, to vary his military
education.

STORM WARNING.—The following cable message
was received at the London office of the New 1 ark
Herald on Sunday from the Herald Weather Bureau :
" New York, Oct. -15, 9 p.m.—Disturbance crossing,
likely to develope energy ; will arrive on North
British and Norwegian coasts between the 18th and
20th; south-west, veering to north, gales or strong
winds."
VERY LIBELY.—First Fishwife: "I hear that poor
old Martha Brown is dead, and that they are going to
have a post naortem examination on her."—Second
ditto: "Oh, they are, are they? Well, that's a nice
thing, I must say! I'll take care they never hold one
on me—at least, not while ,I'm

W.A;c.

ii.l4iiff *ciao-•it, - -