24 SEPTEMBER 1904, Page 2

Reuter's Berlin correspondent, in a telegram to Friday's papers, gives

an astonishing example of German militarism. A cadet at Strassburg, seeing the servant of a well-known lawyer riding a bicycle in the street, mistook the man's livery for uniform, and angrily rebuked him for not saluting. The man, a Bavarian, very naturally chaffed the cadet on his blunder. On this the cadet called a soldier and had the man

arrested. When the man complained to the Colonel, that officer upheld the cadet's action, and maintained that he had the right to run his sword through the servant, as the latter had insulted the German uniform. Technically, we suppose the Colonel was correct in his amazing assertion of the officer's 'right to " spit " civilians, and if German civilians are willing to endure such a state of things, it is perhaps foolish for foreigners to criticise.