f- The Germans are tolerably confident too. The entire Press,
almost without exception, urges the King to stand firm, the mer- chants declare openly that suspense is unendurable, and the people are ready to be summoned in the Landwehr. Very few official inci- dents are reported from Germany, but these two important state- ments appear to be truce. The Prussian Army is quite ready, all its waste of men, and material, and money in the military chest having been repaired since the war, and the most strenuous efforts are being made to mobilize the Bavarian Army. So great is the pressure op the Southern Governments, that it is thought expe- dient to deny a rumour, produced by the closeness of the alliance, that Bavaria had entered the Northern Federation. The re- organization of the artillery is nearly. complete, horses have been procured frem Galicia, and it is sala that the store of cartridges, which are apt to be wasted by men using the needle-gun, is greater than before the war. The Prussian journals energetically deny hostility to Holland, but some negotiations are clearly on foot, the object of which is probably this. The instant war begins France will blockade every Prussian port, and Prussia wants to be sure that her road to the Atlantic through Holland will be clear. To this end Count von Bismarck is exerting what Mr. Gladstone calls "gentle pressure."
