The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1914-06-17
INSULT IS MOST
 SERIOUS DEFENSE
 IN GERMAN COURT

Berlin, June 17-Insult, or Beleidi- gung,7 as 1t is termed in Germany, Is easily the most popular crime in The Fsatherland. This is strikingly shown ! by statistics of such cases for 1913, Just issued. The report is that of the so- called Schiedsrichter, official peace makers before whom such eases must be brought in an effort to effect g. compromise before recourse to the courts is had. The report shows a. total of more than PA, GOO eases for the year.
 Thouaands of these eases were un- doubtedly due to most trivial causes. Newspaper reports of insult proceed Iings. show. cases like the following:
 Man fined because. when a police man in citizens clothing declared him self to be an officer, the cuIprit replied: ssYou look like it.
 Woman, wife of a striker imprison ed because, as group of strike-breakers was passing, she .spat contemptuous- ly."
 strikebreakers were passing.
 Police lieutenant, fined for saying to young man in the station house Keep still green youth
 Socialist. fined for sending Social ist campaign literature to Prussian policeman
 .Landrat.. Ca local oficial of great power in Prussia), fined for insu1tin ng a young magistrate by declaring that he would not give his testimony Ito such a youth.'.
 Socialist editor, fined for insulting the public authorities by referring to many times convicted pander and petty thief as sstl1e crown witness in allusion to the fact that a brother ed itor had been convicted in another case upon this mans testimony. ! That Ps-17sSf. tzilIs oxa majority in two or three generations ! is the sconclusion of two writer's who separately have been studying thesta tistics of population Tn 1875 out of every 1000 children born In wed1ock sos had Protestant parents, but by 1911 this number had sunk to 519. On the other, hand, the number of chill dren of pure Catholic percentage rose in the same years from S39 to 40S. The conclusion is drawn that if the movement of the past se years con tinues unchanged for another period of equal length. the purely CathoIic births will then be 478. as compared with only 435 Protestant.
 These figures leaves out of account the children of mixed marriages and those of Jewish parentage. It is in teresting to notoe that the percentage of Jewish births has fallen more sharply than that of the Protestants; where there were LII Jewish births per 1000 in 1875 there are only 5.2 in 1911.
 The school statistics of Prussi a. strikingly confirm the movement de- scrib above. From 1886 to 1911 the gain of Protestant pupils in the common schools was sos, ,O0O, where as the Catholic pupils gained e2O, In explaining the cause of this move ment 1t is pointed out that Prot estant population of Prussia is much veal thier than the Catholic, and it is also much more largely Represented in the ! big cikies---aaaI it is precisely araone 2 the WeaIthtier classes and in the ur- ban population that the birth rate has declined most sharply. N
 The growing interest in athletic sports In Germany finds a fresh illus tratfon in the opening By the En1pe- TOT on May 26 of an extensive field for sports. to be used solely by the IA 900 students of Berlin University the CharIottenburg Technical University, and the other educational institutions of Berlin. The Emperor and the Elm press attended the dedication, and the Prussian Minister of Education and Public Worship delivered the principal address. He described the rapid growth of interest in athletics among German students, which he at tributed to the impulse given by the Emperor himself.
 A great change, he said, had come over the students; sports and games, walking and rowing had become uni versal. The grounds, he added, had hlbeen given by the Prussian State which also bore the expense of clear ing them and erecting the necessary | houses. The grounds are in the I Grunewald. the large forest lying half an hours ride to the west of Berlin Wantable summer millinery goods a t | the lowest prices ever. rt110faf7 fo1. v1exr desirable merchandise at E. H. Dillon ] 6 Co.'S. l105 Main street.-AdY.