The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1886-02-06
THE GREAT CHANCELLOR.
Abundant Evidence Shown That He Was a
Wild Young Man.

Wild Young Man.
At the Hanoverian university of Got
tingen, to which he repaired in 1882,
being then tall, slim youth of seven
teen, Bismarck became notorious as
the widest of wild race of students.
He was rarely seen in the class-rooms,
but he was a little too active in other
directions, for during his three terms
at Gottingen he fought no fewer than
twenty eight. duels, being victorious in
all. 1t is not little curious, however,
that he found great pleasure in his
converse with very different kind of
student, John Lothrop Motley, who
afterward became as distinguished a
writer of history as Bismarck has been
in the making of it.
1t is noteworthy that in his Gotting-
en- days Bismarck wagered twenty-five
bottles Of champagne with an Ameri-
can that Germany would be united iii
twenty years. Proceeding to Berlin in
1888, the embryo statesman still neg
lected his studies until toward the close
of the university career, when he
worked with will and passed his state
examination in law. His mother at
this time had already discovered in her
son the making of a great diplomatic.
Having acted for some time as an Off
cial law reporter at one of the Berlin
tribunals, and subsequently in the
higher capacity of referendary to AK
la-Chapelle, we next find him in the
Crown office at Potsdam. He then
took his turn at years soldering,
pacing at midnight, with musket on
shoulder, the terrace of Sans Souci.
Afterward, settling down in Pomer-
ania, he accepted a country life as his
natural vocation, like Oliver Cromwell.
''In fact, not to speak of later resem-
blances in their career, the earlier life
of the Pomeranian squire had much in
common with that of the Huntingdon
shire farmer, albeit the passion for
prayer-meetings and communion with
the saints might not have been equally
strong in both. Bismarck now at
tended fairs, sold wool, inspected tim
Der, handled grain, drove hard bar
gains, gathered rents and sat as Deputy
in the local diet" His wild ways, his
demon-like rides, and his drinking
bouts soon procured for him the name
of ''mad Bismarck - HE quaifed
huge cups of mixed champagne and
porter, he awoke his guests in the
morning by firing off pistols close to
their ears, and he terrified his lady cou-
sins by turning foxes into the drawing
room" Yet this acknowledgements
being at the same time studied Spinoza
deeply. and it is said Machiavelli also.
In 1915 his father died, and Bismarck
came in for one of the three Pomeranian
family estates, and also the ancestral
seat at Schonhausen, to which he now
repaired for good. On the 18th of July,
1847, he married Johanna, the daugh-
ter of Heinrich Won Puttkamer. This
| lady was the ideal of German wife,
and the union was so happy that even
Bismarck's worst enemies could find no
flaw in it, while the Chancellor himself
has acknowledged the great debt he
owes to his wife for her unceasng SYM
pathy and encouragement in times OF
grave difficulty. In the same year as
his marriage, but little earlier, Bis
marck was elected as Knights Deputy
for his native arrondisscmcnt to the
Laudtag, or provincial diet, of Prussian
Saxony Times.