refully avoided speaking of those things of which the heart
was full, and Berlin afforded an insight into the mental condition of
the people of Spain during the most flourishing period of the
Inquisition, or of Venice in the days when anonymous denunciations
poured into the yawning jaws of the Lions of St. Mark's square.

The Reichstag was dissolved, the people of Germany must choose new
representatives, and the chief, if not the sole question to be decided
by the election was, Are the Socialists to be dealt with under a
special act, or to come under the common law? Schrotter now felt it
justifiable, nay, that it was his duty, to throw off the reserve he had
maintained since his return to the Fatherland, and come forward as a
candidate for the Reichstag, though for a suburban district, as the
city district to whose poor he had been an untiring benefactor as
physician and friend, with help, counsel, and money, was not available.

At a meeting of his constituents he laid down his confession of faith.
A special act, he explained, was in no way justified, would indeed be
ineffectual, and lead away from the object they had in view. The
government would be guilty of libel if it made the Socialists
answerable for a crime committed by two half or wholly insane persons;
it was the duty of the government to prove that these attacks were the
work of the Socialists: that proof, however, it had been unable to
discover. Moreover, no special act in the world could hinder people of
unsound mind from committing insane deeds--the crimes of a Hodel or a
Nobiling could not be predicted, but neither could they be prevented by
any kind of precautionary measure. The sole result of a special act
would be to make the Socialists practically outlaws in their own
country. That would constitute not only a terrible severity against a
large class of their fellow-citizens, but a frightful danger to the
State. In hundreds and thousands of hearts it would destroy the sense
of fellowship with the community in which they lived; they would look
upon themselves as outcasts, and become the enemies of their pursuers.
It would be exactly as if some thousands of Frenchmen were set down in
the midst of the German population--in the army, in the cities, the
factories, the arsenals and railways, where they would only wait for a
favorable opportunity to revenge themselves on their conquerors. That
would be the inevitable result if the Socialists were deprived of th