NEWS OF THE WEEK.
"EUROPE was greatly surprised and a little excited on
Sunday last by the publication of an official state- ment that the German Emperor had on the previous day submitted to an operation for polypus on the vocal chord. It is so unusual for Kings to admit that they are ill, and so usual for their physicians to be optimistic, that the whole world recalled with apprehension the patient's hereditary liability, and for a moment expected more serious news to follow. It appears, however, that the Emperor, dreading that very mistake, ordered the whole truth to be told at once, and that the great surgeons employed unanimously pronounce the growth . to be " benignant," a judgment confirmed after microscopic investigation by Professor Orth. The only result of the operation will, it is hoped, be a loss of voice for a few days. We congratulate both the Emperor and his subjects most heartily. We dislike William II.'s internal government, which seems to us to shrivel the political capacity of his people, and we distrust his external policy, which may end in collisions with Great Britain and America ; but we should grieve much to hear that he had a prospect either of a life of suffering or of an early death. He is one of the few great figures left in Europe, and we cannot forget that much of what seems to us objectionable helps to make him an object of passionate devotion to his own people. They approve his absorption of the political vitality of his great Empire, and foreigners therefore have the right of record rather than of comment. May he live to his grandfather's age, and grow in the process of the years to his father's wisdom.
