proofs" at home.

The secret "Red and White League" -not daring to add the "blue," but repudiating the "red"-sapped their Georgia regiments. Discipline was nugatory; the order to charge or to fall back sometimes proceeded from some Stentor of a private. "Lee's miserables' were so ragged that he "was always ashamed of them except when fighting." Memminger's "graybacks" would not feed them, and Nature's "graybacks" devoured them.

Stonewall Jackson performed prodigies of daring and valor, and made Frémont his "Quartermaster." Johnston made a masterly retreat in Georgia; and then Hood "fout and fout" in Atlanta, and afterward was driven away from Nashville with ignominy.

But it was all of no avail. Their great "interior circle," on which Albert Sydney Johnston counted so much, became daily narrower and more hollow. "Cousin Sal" was impetuous and brave, but no match for her persistent and hard-headed old Uncle. To replenish their wasted regiments, they were driven to "rob the cradle and the grave." The fatal end drew near. "Submissionists' began to rear their heads. Men began to talk of "dying in the last ditch."

Meantime, Grant was pounding at Richmond with his accustomed doggedness, determined to "fight it out on that line, if it took all summer." It took all summer, and all winter. Sherman conceived his daring project, asked and received permission, and then went "marching through Georgia." Sheridan took a memorable "ride" up the Shenandoah Valley, then hastened down, and fell upon Petersburg.

One Sunday morning, after reading a mysterious telegram in church, Davis made ready in all haste, and fled

with his Cabinet from Richmond. On his way through North Carolina he made a speech, in which he affirmed that the "war had entered upon a new phase." That new phase meant for him a "Yankee Bastile."

It was a "lost cause." The Rebels were "overpowered, but not whipped." They were "outnumbered by the Northern scum.'

The government did not hang Davis on a sour appletree," or any other, but proceeded quietly to the great work of "Reconstruction." "My policy" did not prevail, but Congress deemed it necessary to "reconstruct reconstruction." "Universal amnesty and universal suffrage" was refused, though the Northern people were disposed to treat the fallen Rebels with great generosity. There followed a long and disgraceful wrangle between Congress and the President, continuing until the incoming of a new administration, with a motto which the people took up with that great joy that comes of weariness: "Let us have peace." But, alas! the South had been "reconstructed" so much, and yet so ill, that there was no peace there; but the unhealed and rankling malady of disfranchisement within burst forth in the violent eruptions of the "Ku-Klux."

The North had said, "The negro troops fought nobly," and therefore demanded for them the ballot. But the negro himself responded:

"Shoo, fly! don't bodder me,

For I belong to Company B."

This history may properly end with the latest sectional mottoes. New England says, "Boston State-House is the hub of the Solar System." The West, speaking through General Logan, replies with arguments about the "geo

graphical center." The South says, "In Dixie land I'll take my stand." On the Pacific slope the word is:

"That for ways that are dark,
And for tricks that are vain,
The heathen Chinee is peculiar."

GERMAN STUDENT FRATERNITIES.

PERHAPS it would be impossible to give a clearer

and yet more comprehensive epitome of German political history for the last three centuries than is found. in the student fraternities. Of course, they do not present an actual epitome of that history, but only an imitation performed by boys; but the doings of boys are so much simpler and withal so much more attractive than their fathers' actions, and, in Germany, have been such an exact imitation of the same, that their history is altogether the most interesting. Görres says," If a boy does not at ten run around with all the gamins he can find, and at twenty become a red-hot republican, he will come to nothing." But the university boys of Germany are not all red-hot republicans at twenty, and we shall therefore find in their doings all forms of government typified.

The fraternities correspond exactly neither to the secret societies of our American colleges nor to the literary societies; for, unlike the first, their constitutions and proceedings are open, and, unlike the second, they pay small attention to that kind of peculiarly American oratory which frequently smacks, as the French say, de la blague, and more to the cultivation of a slightly maudlin patriotism which is known in Germany as Deutschthaumelei. As in America, there are two classes of organizations, quite as distinct as ours, and a third party of neutrals, though these latter are far less numerous proportionately than in American colleges. The most numerous and powerful

class of fraternities, especially in North German universities, is the corps; and the others we may call, for lack of a more accurate word, literary clubs, though this is by no means a translation of their title (Burschenschaften), but only an approximate indication of their character. Besides these, there are a few theological fraternities, found principally in Catholic universities and in Switzerland; and fewer still of what may be called classic fraternities, as, for instance, that of Berlin devoted to the study of Thucydides. Both the corps and the literary clubs have, as in America, a common organization in many universities, though this community is less perfect than ours, extending usually only to the most general regulations as to duels, beer-courts, etc., and the correspondence between them is irregular. Each university has its own special beer-code and duel-code, established by its General Convention, by which all beer and sword-duels must be regulated; but the different lodges of the same organization have an arrangement of cartel between them which entitles students moving from one university to another, or students fighting a duel in another university than their own, to certain rights and privileges. Some of them may have secret grips or pass-words, but, if so, it is in violation of agreements made with the faculties, and I have never discovered any evidence of them. The principal mode of salutation consists in an embrace and a good, broad, "clamorous smack. As to badges, colors, uniforms, and present general character, it will be more appropriate to speak after some consideration has been devoted to their origin and history.

The existence of these fraternities reaches far back into the seventeenth century, and the earliest form which they assumed was that of national clubs (Landsmannschaften) founded solely on the principle of a common nationality.