The Washington herald., 1915-10-03
@Nzfe4po0 Z
~ NlSektaoo

They rashly ventured too near the fire
! then and their fingers were badly
burned.
First Denmark felt the heavy hand
OF England. which chastised her fol
having joined in the League of Armed
I Neutrality in 1900. For that presump-
ton. British feet bombarded Copen.
hagen. where Nelson held the spy
/; glass to his blind eye SO that he
might not see the signal to cease
| firing. which he was told his COM
| mander-in-c chief had hoisted on the
! flagship
| Sweden incurred a still harder pen
atty at the hands of Napoleon for
| abandoning the League OF Neutrals
and joining England and her allies
| In this abandonment of the league she
only -ollowed Russia. but when Ma
poleon and Alexander made up at the
love feast of Tiisit. the French EN-
peror sealed their friendship by Civ
ing the Car permission to snatch Fin
| land from Sweden.
| At the same time Denmark. which
remained faithful to the principles OF
the league, received another severe
punishment from England. which
swCoped down on Copenha gen, grab
bed the entire Danish navy and car
ried it off for safe keeping" Natural
| ~ ina tSpi Cuc-lloLi ONc tHc Id! Cd
| into the open arms of Napoleon, whose
faithful ally Denmark remained to the
| bitter end.
| And it was indeed bitter enough.
For when Napoleon was overthrown,
the Congress of Vienna took Norway
| from Napoleon's Danish ally and hand
! ed it over to the King of Sweden as a
reward for Swedish assistance in the
Napoleonic wars and as a compensa-
! ton for the loss of Finland.
But Denmark did not drain the glass
at Vienna. It remained for Bismarck
to press it to her lips again after forty
years had passed and give the Danes
the first of his drastic doses OF blood
and iron
Winding Their Own Business.
Although Denmark IS Scandinavian
| in her culture, she is not Scandinavian
| in geography. She does not belong to
| that peninsula which hangs down
from the top of Europe. but is joined
to Southern Europe and to Germany.
| For hundreds of years her Kings had
also been Dukes of Schleswis- -Holstein.
ana as such they were members OF
| the ancient Germanic Empire.
When Prussia began to fern a new
German Empire. almost her first step
from the Danish crown. This surgery
was attended by some blood letting in
the course of six months war in
| 1864, when the Prussian military ma
chine crushed its way slowly into
Denmark herself and compelled the
cession of the disputed ground.
With the loss of Schleswig- -Hoi-
stein, the Scandinavians had parted
| with their last holding in Europe out
side of Scandinavia and were shut in
among themselves. But there are
about 100000 of them in all-qu!,e
enough to keep one another company.
They have their regretful memories,
| OF course, but nations are all the hap
pier without things that don't belong
to them and with nothing to do but
! mind their own business.
There are several ways OF casting
up 4 country's possessions. One is by
counting the number of people it holds
IN subsection. Another is to count up
the deposits in its savings banks.
Now. Great Britain has hundreds OF
millions of subjects. but her people az
home have only an average of about
S2o in the savings bank. where the
Swiss have an average of $sS. Rus
sia has more people than she ever mas
been able to count, but the Russians
have hardly IS apiece in the savings
bank, while the Danes have $61, the
Norwegians s62 and the Swedes about
s45. 1t does pay to mind your own
business.
Scandinavia may no longer have
seat at the council table OF Europe.
where princes play for high stakes