Great. We were very wrong indeed when we allowed the
triumph over Napoleon to be soiled with the mire and blood of Blucher's
sullen savages. We were very wrong indeed when we allowed the peaceful
King of Denmark to be robbed in broad daylight by a brigand named
Bismarck; and when we allowed the Prussian swashbucklers to enslave and
silence the French provinces which they could neither govern nor
persuade. We were very wrong indeed when we flung to such hungry
adventurers a position so important as Heligoland. We were very wrong
indeed when we praised the soulless Prussian education and copied the
soulless Prussian laws. Knowing that you will mingle your tears with
mine over this record of English wrong-doing, I dedicate it to you, and
I remain,

Yours reverently,

G. K. CHESTERTON

II--_The Protestant Hero_

A question is current in our looser English journalism touching what
should be done with the German Emperor after a victory of the Allies.
Our more feminine advisers incline to the view that he should be shot.
This is to make a mistake about the very nature of hereditary monarchy.
Assuredly the Emperor William at his worst would be entitled to say to
his amiable Crown Prince what Charles II. said when his brother warned
him of the plots of assassins: "They will never kill me to make you
king." Others, of greater monstrosity of mind, have suggested that he
should be sent to St. Helena. So far as an estimate of his
historical importance goes, he might as well be sent to Mount Calvary.
What we have to deal with is an elderly, nervous, not unintelligent
person who happens to be a Hohenzollern; and who, to do him justice,
does think more of the Hohenzollerns as a sacred caste than of his own
particular place in it. In such families the old boast and motto of
hereditary kingship has a horrible and degenerate truth. The king never
dies; he only decays for ever.

If it were a matter of the smallest importance what happened to the
Emperor William when once his house had been disarmed, I should satisfy
my fancy with another picture of his declining years; a conclusion that
would be peaceful, humane, harmonious, and forgiving.

In various parts of the lanes and villages of South England the
pedestrian will come upon an old and quiet public-house, decorated with
a dark and faded portrait in a cocked hat and the singular inscription,
"The King of Prussia." These inn signs probably commemorate the visit of
the Alli