The German Socialists have either grown cautious, or are really
softened by their new freedom. In the Socialist Con- gress now sitting, they have dropped their tone of menace, profess a determination to persuade the majority, and inter- mediately declare that their "just weapons," strikes and boycotting, must be used carefully, and only at good oppor- tunities. Herr Bebel, the orator of the sect, has even acknow- ledged that a bourgeois may be a human being, he very often, says the Socialist leader, being nothing but a workman who has risen. The party still urges that the State should resume all capital, but possesses itself £17,000, with which it pro- poses to start newspapers. . It is, therefore, itself one of the horrid capitalists who ought to be bled to death. Let us hope the 217,000 will become £17,000,000, by which time the bourgeoisie will be considered, like the English middle class under the ten-pound franchise, "the backbone of the com- munity." "I've gotten a coo, noo," said the repentant Scotch Radical.
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