A STORY OF PRINCE BISMARCK.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4235, 16 October 1874, Page 3

A STORY OF PRINCE BISMARCK.

A Saxon military band gave a private performance before Prince Bismarck a few weeks ago in Berlin, just prior to his departure for Kissingen, and one of its members has furnished a Dresden paper -with an account of their reception by him as follows : —The Prince showed them over his house, and pointing to a desk in the Princess’ room,told them his wife, as they might observe, kept the cash. He had from the beginning entrusted her with the charge of his money affairs, while he attended to politics, and he would advise every married man to do the same, taking no more than his wife gave him. Drawing a table out of a corner he said, “At this table M. Thiers, M. Favre, and I played a dummy game at whist. That dummy was won partly owing to you Saxons, for if all had not been so brave I should have held no trumps in my hand. When we began to negotiate the gentlemen would not understand my French because I demanded too much. Thereupon I spoke German to them, and that they would not at first properly understand, but at last we agreed. They conceeded everything, and when they had signed their names to it I again spoke French to them. Had we been united 200 years ago we need not have been tyrannised over by the French ; but now, thank God, we are united, and I hope we shall remain so. If they once more require it we shaE again give them a fall.” Alluding to the war of 1866, the Prince said he had always respected the Saxons, for they above all had the courage to stand firm against Prussia when all the others had lost their heads. “You must nee,” he said, “that it could not be helped. We were forced to find out which of us was the strongest.”