The Prussian franchise demonstrations culminated in a considerable riot in
Berlin on Sunday last. For some days a contest of wits had been going on between the Socialists and the Police President. The President had announced that no meetings would be allowed, but the Socialists argued that if they " went for a walk" in honour of franchise reform, they would not violate any part of the law. The President assumed that the "franchise walk" was to take place in Treptow Park, •and he guarded all the approaches to that triangle of open land. But the Socialists had secretly arranged to collect their forces in another part of the town. They walked to the Reichstag, and the whole Konigsplatz was filled, as the Times correspondent says, with a cheerful mass of people, who sang the " Marseillaise " and cheered for franchise reform "beneath the unsympathetic statues of Bismarck, Boon, and Moltke." The police charged the crowd and gradually dispersed it. The strategy of the Socialists, however, had completely succeeded. Later in the day demon- strators tried to enter Treptow Park, and it was there that the worst encounters between the police and the crowds occurred. Some gendarmerie imported from the country appear to have lost their heads, and they used revolvers and sabres. Several persons were seriously wounded.
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