The Sun.
London, England, 1862-05-07 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, MAY 7, 1862,

7'HE ELECTIONS IN PRUSSIA.

A letter from Brlin, dated May 3d, says :
In the case of elections conducted on the Prussian
system accurate results can, of course, be obtained
only -el hen the second process (election of deputies
by the electors chosen by the people) is over. Thai
final operation is fixed to take place on the 6th inst.
Meanwhile, and although there still are rural dis-
tricts where the issue Is uncertain, the general
classification of the Chamber now in embryo is per-
fectly well known. The main political divisions are
plainly marked, and one may reckon within a few
the numbers that will array themselves under Liberal
and under Conservative banners; also the strength
of the two sections of the Chamber, Catholics and
Poles, which are guided in their support of or op-
position to, a Cabinet more by regard to their own
particular interests and desires than by the broader
views of the main parties. The Catholics, or Ultra-
montanes, however, may generally be reckoned as
allies and supporters of the anti-Liberal or reacting
party, while the usual practice of the Poles has
hitherto been to oppose all Governments in the
supposed interest of their nationality and alleged
wrongs. This last factious fraction of the Prussian
Chamber has its importance when other parties are
nearly divided, but only then, for it is small, and the
elections for Wahlmantter have shown that it will
be smaller than ever in this Parliament, the Ger-
man element having had completely the upper
hand in the primary elections for the province of
Posen. The strongholds of the Catholic party are
in Silesia, the Rhine provinces, and Westphalia, but
it is believed that even there they will prove to
have been less successful this time than on any
former occasion. As to the extreme Right, the old
high Tory party, hero generally known as the
Feudals, next Tuesday's voting will show it to have
been signally defeated. In the last Chamber it
numbered but a mere unimportant handful, but
in this one, lip to a recent date, it was expected
greatly to improve its position, such being the
tendency of the electioneering measures of the
Government. People talked of its returning 60
or 70 members, and then said it would certainly
have 40 or 50, until just before the elections, when
the spirit manifested in the country was so strong
that Conservative prospects again became gloomy;
and now there can be no question of that party
having any weight, numerical or moral, in the
coming Parliament. In the capital nothing could
be more complete than its overthrow. Its own
organ has declared that, according to its estimate,
perhaps one-tenth of the Berlin votes were Con-
servative, one-fifth Constitutional (moderate Libe-
ral), and the remaining seven-tenths " Democrats,"
or advanced Liberals—by which, once for all, may
here be understood the party which seeks, while
fully maintaining the real rights of the Crown, ener-
getically and promptly to carry out and realize
the spirit and benefits of the constitution. Ac-
cording to the most recent corrected accounts, it
seems that all the towns of 20,000 inhabitants or
upwards will return Liberal deputies. In short, as
to the general results of the elections throughout
the whole kingdom there is no difference of opinion,
although, of course, there are immense differences
of feeling.

Since the 28th of April the Government organ
(and there is but one in Berlin) has not known
what to say to cover or alleviate the utter discom-
fiture of its employers. It assured the public
, that the great predominance of the Party of Pro-
gress in the body of Wahlmanner chosen was not a
fair reflection of the political convictions of the
great body of electors, but that such an extraordi-
nary result was. due only to the activity and good
discipline of that party. This assertion will hardly
pass muster. Activity and discipline unquestionably
have their value in elections, as elsewhere, and
the Government stringently enjoined both these
qualities on its legions of employes, who in Prussia
are reckoned by hundreds of thousands, even
those merely local functionaries who cannot be
said to depend on the Ministry having been
dragged within its action on this occasion.
Nevertheless, its candidates have been nearly
everywhere beaten —by no slender majorities,
but by larger ones than at last autumn's elections.
The Liberals almost everywhere won in a can-
ter. The means resorted to by the Government,
the pressure exercised, the violent circulars of
the sub-prefects and others, produced exactly the
contrary effect to that intended, and caused num-
bers of electors to vote for Fortschritt candidates
who otherwise would have supported a more mode-
rate political opinion, but who felt themselves com-
pelled to protest, by their suffrage, against the iden-
tification of the rights of the Crown with the prin-
ciples of the present cabinet. A more injudicious
cry than that of " Crown against Parliament"
could not have been devised. Based upon a mani-
fest falsehood, every lover of truth felt bound to
discountenance it to the utmost. The Stern Zeitung
to-day, in one of those chapfallen articles of which
it has given us so many of late, declares that the
reports concerning the elections of the 28th ult. are
still so incomplete that a decided judgment cannot
be formed as to the results. It admits, however,
that the advanced Opposition will be strongly re-
presented in the next Chamber, and it fears that
the Conservative element will not have sufficient
influence at the elections for deputies so to modify
what has been done as to allow a probability of the
much-to-be-desired good understanding between
the Government and the representatives of the na-
tion. The Stern Zeituny is perfectly justified in
these forebodings, and if its employer§ make their
stay in power contingent on their having a majority
in the Chamber, they may prepare to vacate their
official residences towards the end of the present
month.

As a proof of the strong interest felt by other
German countries in the Prussian elections is cited
the reception given to the Berlin electors at Leipsic,
on their arrival there, or return thither, on Monday
night last. A long train took a crowd of voters who
had either returned to or remained in Berlin, instead
of going to the fair, in order to exercise their fran-
chise. At the towns on the road, Bitterfeld end
Delitsch, they found the stations hung with coloured
lamps, and were greeted with hearty cheers by the
assembled inhabitants. At Leipsic several thousand
persons thronged the station and its environs ; the
voters were received by members of the National
Verein and by a chorus of singers, speeches were
made in the waiting room, and the demonstration
was enthusiastic in favour of the party of progress
and of German unity.
Abundant details have been received respecting
the row at the little town of Muhlhausen, in East
Prussia, briefly mentioned in a recent letter. The
burgomaster of that place had acted most zealously
in the Government interest, bad issued a flaming
proclamation, and agitated among the lower classes
of the population, who also, it is reported, had been
excited against the respectable inhabitants by one
or two persons of evil repute. The burgomaster and
the sub prefect were both urged to take certain pre-
cautions deemed essential under the circumstances,
but they did nothing. During the elections the
attitude of the great rabble was such, and the inti-
midation used so great, that many of the Liberals
dared not give their votes, and consequently only
one Liberal was returned out of eight wahlnianner
elected. The elections were very soon over; a short
period of tranquillity ensued, but early in the after-
noon the mob made an attack on several houses of
the most
apn theyrominent Liberals, plundering and de-
o
contained. One letter says that,
in houses the owners of which it names, furniture,
fixtures, window-frames, everything destructible,
in short, were smashed into splinters, while all por-
table valuables were carried off. The persons whose
property was thus assailed were some who had not
allowed themselves to be deterred from voting.
Several of them were also subjected to personal ill-
4sage. The burgomaster did not interfere, and the
gendarmes were inactive. Seeing that the authori-
ties would do nothing, one of the inhabitants got a
telegraphic despatch sent to the neighbouring town
of Braunsberg, and late in the afternoon a detach-
ment of 40 soldiers came over by train and restored
order. Some 30 persons aro said to have been ar-
rested and committed to prison, and, if the Govern-
ment allows a proper investigation to be made,
others are likely to find themselves in trouble. Ac•
cording to a letter in a Berlin paper, the burgo-
master, Fritsch by name, has hueg himself,
Several journals announce a disciplinary investi.

gation to have been opened against M. Twesten,
on account of his speethet3 at election meetings—
speeches considered to have transgressed the prohi-
bitions contained in the Ministerial circulars,
whereby Government functionaries were forbidden
to agitate in an anti-Ministerial sense. At. Twesten,
as you know, took very little account of such pro-
hibition, and he may probably lose his place in con-
sequence of his patriotic boldness, unless the Go-
vernment has sense enough (which is doubtful) to
discern in time that by such prosecutions it only
renders itself more and more odious, and creates a
splendid position for the objects of its hatred when-
ever a Liberal Ministry shall come in.

Notwithstanding the overwhelming superiority
of the advanced Liberal element made manifest in
last Monisy's meeting of the wahlmanner of the
first district of Berlin, the so-called Moderates pro
pose bringing forward Kuhne and two other can-
didates, without, as it is believed, a chance of suc-
cess. In a second meeting, since held, a letter was
read from the venerable Professor Broeck; declin-
ing, on account of his advanced age, to be put for-
ward as a candidate, as had been proposed by a
great majority of votes at the Monday's meeting,
and expressing his thanks for a distinction and
mark of confidence which thus came to cheer the
evening of his life. Lieut.-Col. Valentini made a
speech in a firm reactionary spirit, and proposed
three candidates, whose names were reoeived with
a perfect storm of ironical applause, and who will
be put to the vote in to-night's meeting, to be,
assuredly, almost unanimously rejected.
Some of the Prussian provincial journals indulge
in pretty plain speaking. 1 have before me a copy
of the Banner Zeitung of Sunday last, one of the
very few copies that escaped rigorous suppression
in consequence of an article certainly not calculated
to give much pleasure to M. von der Heydt, to
whose election for Elberfeld Barmen it makes fierce
opposition. He is charged with having dragged
the Crown into the tumult of party strife, with
having helped to swell the military budget and to
dissolve the Chamber, which insisted on its proper
revision, and with having remained Minister when
his colleagues could no longer find it in their con-
science to do so. The chamelion-like changes of his
political career are traced, and ho is congratulated
on again finding himself associated with men of the
Manteuffel stamp. It is a bold and telling article,
too strong for the Prussian atmosphere, and was
confiscated accordingly.

The last decres of the Elector of Hesse Cassel has
naturally excited not a little indignation here— as it
has done in Hesse
.among all except the members of
that remarkable Jiessen- Verein, which has just
issued a programme, declaring that " Jesus Christ
is our heavenly Lord, and Elector Frederick Wil-
liam I. is our earthly Lord, invested with the office
of ruler in Hesse not by men, but by God's ordi-
nance on earth," and demanding recognition of the
constitution and of the electoral law of 1860. It, of
course, had been anticipated that the step backwards
taken here would not be without its effect else-
where. The new decree is simply a buffet given to
Prussia, whose late Government, instead of acting
independently in the Hessian question, had at last
got Austria to act with it through the Frankfort
Diet. Their proposal was made on the very eve of
the Ministerial crisis in Berlin. The least it de-
manded was the re-establishment of the Constitu-
tion of 1831, and the least that could be expected
was that the electoral Government, pending the
Diet's decision, would leave the question in static
quo ; and probably this would have been the case
but for the change of Ministry in Prussia. The
object of the present decree seems to be to prevent
the Hessians from protesting against illegality,
and making reserve of their rights, as they have
already on three occasions done. The electors must
now declare, before voting, that they do so on the
basis of the Constitution• and electoral law of May,
1860, without any reserve. The calculation of the
Government doubtless is that the great majority of
the electors, who stand up for their constitutional
rights, will not vote; but that a small minority,
who can be influenced or intimidated, will return a
sham Parliament, which will prove pliant to every
Ministerial requirement. Backed by the vote of
this phantom of a popular representation, the
Elector may declare to the Federal Diet that inter-
ference in the affairs of his country has become
quite superfluous, since he and his dutiful subjects
have found the means of perfect agreement. Austria
will probablynot take a great deal of pains to ascertain
how far such argument is real. Count Rechberg is
not credited with much anxiety in behalf of the
oppressed and scandalously treated Hessians; and,
as regards the Heydt-Bernstorff Ministry, the Prus-
sian Liberals will tell you that it is not likely those
men will enter the lists very zealously in defence of
constitutional rights in Hesse, who have lately been
doing all they can to stint and cut it down in Prus-
sia. The electoral decree, however, was published
on the 26th of March. The Prussian elections com-
menced only on the 28th, and their final and posi-
tive results will not be known till next week. Their
moral effect will be great in Germany, and the de-
cree, although given, has yet to be carried out.

pheropol, Sebastopol, Kertch, and thence to Odessa, 1
Constantinople, Adrianople, Boosa, Smyrna, Eng-
land, Ireland, and Scotland. In 1820 r e formed
the:acquaintance of Lady Georgians Mary Walpole,
and was married to her by the Rev. Mr. Simeon.
Shortly after the marriage they went to Jerusalem,
and, leaving her ladyship at Malta, from 1831 to
1834 ho proceeded to search for the Ten Tribes. He
went to Alexandria, Anatolia, Constantinople,
Armenia, and Khorassan, in which place he was
made a slave, tied to a horse's tail, and ransomed
by Abbas Mirza. Thence he pursued his journey to
Bokhara, Balkh, Cabool,Lahore, and Cashmere, be-
ing received with great distinction by Runjeet
Singh, Lord William Bentinck, and Sir Edward
Barnes. Dr. Wolff then went by land from Loodi-
ana:to Calcutta in a palanquin, preaching on his pro-
gress at 130 stations. From Calcutta ho went to
Masulipatam and Secunderabad, and was seized by
cholera near Madras. On his recovery, he left Ma-
dras in a palanquin for Pondicherry, visited the snc-
cessfal mission in Tinnevelly, went to Goa, Bombay,
Egypt, and joined Lady Georgiar a Wolff in Malta.
In 1836 he journeyed to Abyssinia, and at Axtun
he found Dr. Gobat, the present Bishop of Jerusa-
lem, who was very ill, and brought him back to
Jiddah in Arabia, and there leaving him Dr. Wolff
proceeded to Sanaa, in Yemen, where he visited the
Reehabites and Yahabites, thence to Bombay and
to the United States of North America, where he
preached before the Congress, and was made doctor
of theology. He was ordained deacon in 1837 by
the Bishop of New Jersey, United States, and priest
in the following year by the Bishop of Dromore.
He made a second journey to Bokhara, in order if
possible to effect the liberation of Col. Stoddart and
Capt. Conolly, the particulars of which are fully
detailed in his " Journey to Bokhara." In 1845 he
was presented to the vicarage of Isle-Brewers, and
held that benefice up to the time of his death.