Walker Lake bulletin. (Hawthorne, Nev.) 1883-1926, 1895-07-17
CHEAP DESPOTISM.
Some of the Minor Annoyances
i'm Europe.
IMPRISONMENT FOR WHISTLING
Petty Tyranny that Puzzles Americans
No Smoking on the Streets-A Few
other Absurdities.

| Records of people arrested in Austria
for wearing daisies, in Saxony for
whi sitting in the streets of the capital,
in Paris for wearing bit of colored
ribbon in the buttonhole and in Berlin
for criticising piece of music and for
smoking in the street-these are among
the items of news brought across the
Atlantic by the recent mails, and it
must be confessed that they are of a
character to cause Americans to rub
their eyes with astonishment and to
ask themselves whether we are really
at the close of the nineteenth century
For it must be confessed that they give
evidence of despotism and of a
tyranny which people here are won't to
associate with medieval ages, and
which are totally out of keeping with
the democratic spirit and trend of the
present era.
1t is petty tyranny that is singu-
larly ill.timed at the present moment,
when nearly every nation of the Old
World is olamoring for the extension
of popular rights and privileges, of
course at the expense of the preroga-
tives of their sovereigns.
OF all the incidents referred to
above, the one most calculated to give
rise to public indignation was the
arrest the other day of Lieutenant Won
Unsinn at Berlin. 1t seems that the
young officer, who was off duty, was
strolling along the Friedrichstrssse
one of the main and most crowded
thoroughfares of the Prussian capital,
with an unlighted cigar between his
fingers. Suddenly he found himself
face to face with the Emperor, who
taxed him with smoking in defiance of
the regulation which he had recently
issued.
The Lieutenant, though much taken
back by the rencontre, as well as by
the brusquerie of his very impetous
majesty's address, still had sufficient
presence of mind to draw the Emper-
or . attontion w tlIe faUU tiiut uob uIly
was the cigar unlighte1, but the end
had not even been cut or bitten off. No
heed, however, was paid by the angered
monarch to these deferential explana-
tions of the officer. He turned deaf
ear thereto, and, in fact, became SO in
furiated that, instead of merely order
ing Won Unsinn to report himself IS
being under arrest he summoned a
couple of policemen, who, in full view
of the immense crowd that assembled,
bundled the unfortunate officer into a
cab and drove him off to the military
prison, where he has remained since,
an object of universal sympathy not
only to the members of his profession,
but also to the people at large.
Everybody smokes on the Continent,
and, save when on duty, it is rare to
see an officer who has not either a
cigar or cigarette between his lips.
This is all the more natural, seeing
that, unlike United States and English
officers, who invariably don mufti when
not ON duty, their foreign comrades are
in uniform all the time. Old Emperor
William, who was certainly martinez
in military matters, and who did not
himself care about smoking, never
made any objection to his officers do
ing SO, while his son, the late Emperor
Frederick, and his nephew, Prince
Frederick Charles, both successful and
victorious commanders, who had won
their lauIels ON many blood-staineo
battle ield, were rarely to be seen with
out cigar, "Unser Fritz" sometimes
even going so far as to smoke one Of
those short porcelain-bowled German
pipes when in uniform.
yNi1lio,,, hnuoupr xyh(
does not smoke anything save cigar
cites, and who knows nothing of wal
save by hearsay and book study, is o.
the opinion that the efficiency OF hi
troops is likely to be impaired by smok-
ing in public, and accordingly he issuet
a sort of ukase few weeks ago strictly
| forbidding either officers or men tt
smoke when in uniform on numbe
of the principal thoroughfares of th
. capital, the Friedrichstrasse and Un
ter den Linden being among the mum
3 Der. Now, at is precisely on tn
a thoroughfares thus prescribed that ar
: situated all the best and most FIRE
{ auented restaurants and cafes of th
: metropolis, and thus whenever youn
= nobleman who happens to belong t
Q the army wishes to indulge in post
s prandial cigar or cigarette. he is oblige
8 to take to a side street before lightin
@ it. And even this does not satisfy tn
II young autocrat, as may be seen fror
b the case of Lieutenant Won Unsini
IS who seems to have been treated wit
n Just as much impulsive and altogetht
k unjust harshness as the ex-Master
Ceremonies, Won Kotze. to whom WI
liam is now endeavoring to make
s. possible amends for his severity.
J. In the cable dispatches published r
ne Gently the American public will hay
y, read that there are at the present M
at ment no fewer than sixty-eight persol
rs at Berlin. some of them in Jail, al
some out on bail, awaiting crimin