The German Emperor is about to return to Berlin, and
the Government is therefore carrying out the Anti-Socialist Laws with a will. The Ministry of State notifies (November 28th) that for one year no person suspected of designs on the public- safety will be permitted to reside in Berlin, Charlottenburg, Potsdam, or the neighbourhood ; and that the carrying of arms, except by soldiers or licensed persons, is prohibited ; that no explosive projectiles may be sold or carried, and that " per- mits " to carry arms will be granted only by the police. As Orsini bombs are not made in public, and as a knife is as dangerous as any other weapon, this order, as a measure of defence, is childish, while the right of removing the "suspect" places individual liberty at the mercy of the police. The Emperor could be much more efficiently guarded by a few dragoons, and a bullet-proof carriage. The police, though well informed, rarely hit upon intending assassins, and would no more have banished Nobiling than any other Berliner of education. The only effect of such orders is to embitter the minds of the 50,000 Socialists in Berlin with the idea that they have none of the rights of freemen, and that any one of them may be banished or ruined because a police inspector thinks he looks too hard at the Emperor as he passes.
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