00

Thus the whole Austrian monarchy contains 256,399 square miles, and a
population which now probably exceeds forty millions. The standing army
of this immense monarchy, in time of peace, consists of 271,400 men,
which includes 39,000 horse and 17,790 artillery. In time of war this
force can be increased to almost any conceivable amount.

Thus slumbers this vast despotism, in the heart of central Europe, the
China of the Christian world. The utmost vigilance is practiced by the
government to seclude its subjects, as far as possible, from all
intercourse with more free and enlightened nations. The government is in
continual dread lest the kingdom should be invaded by those liberal
opinions which are circulating in other parts of Europe. The young men
are prohibited, by an imperial decree, from leaving Austria to prosecute
their studies in foreign universities. "Be careful," said Francis II. to
the professors in the university at Labach, "not to teach too much. I do
not want learned men in my kingdom; I want good subjects, who will do as
I bid them." Some of the wealthy families, anxious to give their
children an elevated education, and prohibited from sending them abroad,
engaged private tutors from France and England. The government took the
alarm, and forbade the employment of any but native teachers. The Bible,
the great chart of human liberty, all despots fear and hate. In 1822 a
decree was issued by the emperor prohibiting the distribution of the
Bible in any part of the Austrian dominions.

The censorship of the press is rigorous in the extreme. No printer in
Austria would dare to issue the sheet we now write, and no traveler
would be permitted to take this book across the frontier. Twelve public
censors are established at Vienna, to whom every book published within
the empire, whether original or reprinted, must be referred. No
newspaper or magazine is tolerated which does not advocate despotism.
Only those items of foreign intelligence are admitted into those papers
which the emperor is willing his subjects should know. The _freedom_ of
republican America is carefully excluded. The slavery which disgraces
our land is ostentatiously exhibited in harrowing descriptions and
appalling engravings, as a specimen of the degradation to which
republican institutions doom the laboring class.

A few years ago, an English gentleman dined with Prince Metternich, the
illustrious prime minister of Austria, in his beautiful