perly cottars with a house, a yard, and land for a cow or two, and pay a rent in money, and in labour, and receive wages, at a reduced rate, for their work all the year round. They are equivalent to our class of married farm servants, but with the difference that they cannot be turned off at the will or convenience of the verpachter, or large farmer, but hold of the proprietor; and all the conditions under which they hold sometimes for life, sometimes for a term of years are as fixed, and supported by law, as those between the proprietor and the verpachter. Of this class there are about 67,710, and of housecottars without land 17,480, and 36,283 day labourers in husbandry. The land is well divided among a total population of only 662,500 souls.

There is no country, except, perhaps, England, in which there is such multiplicity and variety of holdings, and courts, as in this part of Germany; so that Holstein is a paradise for lawyers. I have been told that in the little town of Itzhoe, of some five hundred houses, there are three distinct jurisdictions. On the abolition of leibeigenschaft, or feudal serfage, government interfered for the protection of the serf, and gave him hereditary right to his holding of house and land, and a right to redeem the burdens under which he held them. On the large baronial estates which have hereditary jurisdiction and police, the baron, or proprietor, appoints and pays the judge and other officers of his barony-court; but they must have taken their degrees at the University of Kiel, must be confirmed, after examination, by the government, and their judgments, and protocols, and the cases before them, must be reported, and confirmed by the district government-courts. They are sharply

supervised by legal functionaries above them, appointed by government, and are as independent of the baron, or local proprietor, as our sheriff-substitute, or resident local magistrate, of the landowners of his county.

In 1660, as most readers of modern history know, the government of Denmark, with all legislative and executive power whatsoever, was, by a solemn act of the States, vested in the will and absolute authority of the king, without any control or check from the nobility, clergy, or people. "L'état, c'est moi," could be said in the fullest and clearest sense by the kings of Denmark alone, of all European sovereigns. The object of the king and people, in this extraordinary act establishing a legal despotism in the kingly power, was to extinguish entirely the oppression and tyranny of the nobles and clergy, which had become intolerable both to the king and people. The spirit of this autocratic government was naturally opposed to the aristocracy in all the possessions of the crown, in Holstein and Sleswick, as well as in Denmark proper, and was naturally favourable to the people, by whom the yoke of the Danish nobility, and their power in opposing the Crown, were broken. To this spirit may be ascribed the preservation of civil rights in Norway, so fully that now, after enjoying for forty years the most democratic constitution in Europe, the people have not found it necessary to make any alteration of importance in the old institutions and laws of the nominally despotic government under which they had lived. In Holstein, especially in the districts on the west coast, the people elect their own parish bailiffs, subject only to the confirmation of the election by the Crown, and,

with the head bailiff, or lord lieutenant, who is the only functionary appointed directly by the king, manage all the local affairs and funds. In no other part of Germany is the administration of their own local interests so entirely in the hands of the people themselves. The military service, also, was far less oppressive in Holstein than in other parts of Germany. The inhabitants of the towns were exempt, the inhabitants of the country were allowed to find substitutes, and those who served were allowed to remain at home, on furlough, for great part of the year, but drawing no pay, and when embodied, the distance to their homes from any part of the duchy was but small.

Governments which in principle and form are despotic are not always those in which the mass of the people enjoy the least of civil liberty. The despotism of republican governments, as of ancient Rome or of Venice, or of France, and the nominally constitutional governments of some countries of Germany, at the present day, may be more oppressive than that of autocratic governments. Freedom of thought, word, and action, of industry, of the employment of capital, and of the mental and bodily powers in the business and occupations of every-day life, is more interfered with, and restricted, under the constitutional governments of France, Belgium, Bavaria, and the other continental countries which have got the show and machinery of representative assemblies for legislation, than under the old régime of those countries. The continental people enjoyed practically more freedom, in the last century, than they do now under their landwehr system, passport system, functionary system, and educational system,

and the superintendence of boards, and official people, over every private undertaking. The people of Holstein appear to have enjoyed more freedom and more material well-being than the people of any other district of Germany. They had the advantage of two considerable cities, Hamburgh and Lubeck, buying all they can produce, and employing much of their labour in preparing fuel, viz. peat and wood, for the inhabitants, at the season when labour is least required in the country. They were comparatively well off.

Kiel, 1851. The condition of the common labouring man, the remuneration he really receives for his labour, in lodging, clothing, food, wages, in different countries, is the most important subject the traveller can inquire into. We We may talk of a man's right to political and civil liberty, to represent or be represented in parliaments, to have a voice in making the laws he is to obey, and to be a free citizen of a great and glorious free country; but after all our discussions and speculations, we come back always to the simple, homely question of all mankind, What's for dinner? The diet of the working man is to him, and his worldly happiness, all-important; and in classes far above that of the labouring farm servant, much of human happiness is served out three times a day in breakfast, dinner, and supper, -the philosopher who has those may exist in this world without much philosophy. On this subject the following details ought not to be uninteresting. On farms in two different districts, and at some distance from each other, and from this town, the unmarried farm servants, lodged and boarded in the farmer's house, but not living at his table, get the

following diet-which is the usual diet of the district for this class:—

Every morning, thin soup made with butter-milk and groats. The groats are of barley (pot barley), or of buck-wheat, which is much cultivated in Holstein for soups and pottage. Every evening, thick pottage and milk. Bread, the black unsifted ryebread of the country, is at discretion at these morning and evening meals, and at all the other meals.

On Sunday, the dinner is a soup made from lard, with dumplings, and roots, viz. potatoes, or with pears in it.

On Monday, the rest of the soup of Sunday, with dumplings, and mashed potatoes in lard-sauce.

On Tuesday, barley boiled in milk, with bacon in summer, and in winter with salt meat, and mashed potatoes, or cabbage, beans, carrots, according to the

season.

On Wednesday, thin pottage with sweet milk, and egg pancakes with a piece of bacon to each pancake; in winter, dumplings with meat sauce.

On Thursday, pease pudding, or yellow peas boiled, with bacon in winter, and in summer, soup as on Sunday.

On Friday, pancakes with soup or pottage; in winter, often milk, pease pudding, and in summer with thick milk.

On Saturday, dumplings and milk, with cheese and a lump of butter, the pound being divided into fourteen lumps.

Every man-servant is allowed, besides, lb. of butter per week. The woman-servants receive no butter weekly, but, instead of it, three dollars (about