The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-07-09
LIECHTENSTEIN.
"A Pygmy Prlncipality With Many Pe-
 culiarities.

of Sutherland could be collected togeth- CT and arranged in the most compact form they would make square block of territory each side of which would measure about forty-siX miles.
 This is a tract a great deal bigger than the Duchy of Brunswick or the Grand-duchy of MeclSlenburg Strelitz, and is really so far as size is concerned, a princely inheritance Yet it's owner does not figure in the "Almanach de Gotha," either among the European sovereigns or among those prinoely or ducal personages whose families are officially held to be as good as those of the various rulers.
 No; the Duke of Sutherland figures only in Part III. of Herr Justus Perthes' wonderful annual. Yet in Part I. of the "Almanach," cheek by jowl with Her Majesty the Queen, the Czar, and the Emperor William IT., is to be found His Sovereign Transparent cy Johann Maria Franz Placidus, reign ing Prince of Liechtenstein, and Duke of Trappau and Jagerndorf. An Aus trian emperor might, without the slightest loss or dignity marry sister of this independent potentate, Prince John IT., but for him to marry a sister of a Duke of Sutherland would be prac- tically impossible. Liechtenstein ranks among the sovereign principalities of the earth the Sutherland estates, on the other hand, receive no recognition at the hands of the compilers of Herr Justus Perthes' Diplomatico-S -Statisti- cal Year Book" and that makes all the difference in the world, and brands the duke as, comparatively speaking, mo- body, and the prince as one of the first class bigwigs of Europe-and this in spite of the fact that the territories in virtue of which the prince holds his rank have only about one-thirty- fifth of the extent of the possessions of the duke.
 If the principality of Liechtenstein, which is a patch of mountain and Rhine detritus of much the same shape as England, were square, it would measure about eight miles each way. As it is, the decentralization of 1t makes an easy enough days walk for healthy man. On the south and west its borders, which are marked in the regulation Continental manner by posts painted in the national colors- red and blue-march with those of Switzerland; on the east they march with those of Austria. On the west the land lies low, and the only natural bar Tier in the way of the wanderer who would enter the principality is the Up per Rhine, which, being spanned by several bridges, can be crossed without difficulty. Switzerland, therefore, with which intercourse is facile, seems to have been destined by fate to be Liech- tenstein's special friend, and, if neces- sary, her protector; for on the east the mountains are high and the passes are few and difficult. Moreover, the Liech- tensteiners are, by descent, rather Ro- manish than German, and are there fore more closely related to their neigh bors in Graubunden than to their neighbors in Vorarlberg. But, in Liechtenstein, as in the principalities of Gilbertian opera, things go a good deal contrariwise; and so, instead of being a republican canton of the Helvetic Con- federation, Liechtenstein is constitu- tional monarchy in close alliance with Austria Hungary.
 Her constitution dates from 1862, and was modified in 1878; her present con- nection with Austria dates from 1852, when she entered into customs and postal union with the Dual Monarchy. Under this arrangement she escapes from the necessity of having to main- tain her own staff of custom house off, cials. Austria supplies the men and the machinery, and pockets the duties on goods entering Liechtenstein; and, in return, she pays the principality a yearly sum which the honest Liechten- steiners declare to be fifty thousand f1orins, but which the "Almanach de Gotha'' puts at only about twenty thou sand florins, or two thousand pounds. Thus it happens that, upon entering Liechtenstein, you have to explain away the cigars in your portmanteau to an Austrian: but as he Is very good Austrian, much more inquisitive than strict, you may face him without tre- nor, unless indeed, you be smuggler on quite formidable scale. In that case I scarcely know what the good Austrian will do with you; for in all the fair land of Jiechtenstefn there is no prison.
 When a Liechtensteiner commits a serious crime-and he seldom so far forgets himself-the principality has to hire prison accommodation for him in the neighboring town of Feldkirch; so it is possible that if you smuggle too extravagantly you also will go to Feld- kirch. Why the prince remains in pos tai alliance with his Austrian brother cannot for the life of me imagine. If, instead of letting his subjects use Aus trian stamps, he issued stamps of his own he would assuredly draw from the philatelists a considerable addition to his income.
 Liechtenstein is, as I have hinted, a little Gilbertian in the matter of her al- dances, her customs. her prisons and her postal arrangements; but she is very much more unconventional and topsy-turvy in other directions In 1S66 when war broke out between Aus tria and Prussia LeichtensteiRga gallant ly Joined the former power, and mobili- zing her little army of sixty-six men, under Captain Rheinberger, dispatched it toward the scene of hostilities. It had marched as far as Arlberg when news reached 1t of the disastrous battle of Koniggratz, whereupon the captain and his merry men, realizing that they were too late for the fair, marched peacefully back again. Two years later Liechtenstein disbanded her army, and