HERR WINDTHORST. A Pen Picture of Prince Bismarck's Celebrated Opponent.

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 213, 30 July 1887, Page 7

HERR WINDTHORST. A Pen Picture of Prince Bismarck's Celebrated Opponent.

Herr Windthorst is very ugly, but his features are not unpleasant ; on the contrary, they show goodness and an extraordinary degree of intelligence. His large eyes, shaded by a thick pair of pebbles, sparkle with mischief. The " Kladeradatsch " often depicts him in the form of a frog, and it must be admitted that the caricature is strikingly like him, thanks to Herr Windthoirt's enormous mouth and thin lins, which look like a saber's cut slashecl|icross the face. Herr Windthorst is exceedingly polite and very good-natured. His conversation is very witty and distinguished by a kind of jog-trot, imperturbable humour, which the Germans call gemuth. His gallantry to the softer sex is proverbial. He never fails to propose a toast to the ladies, a thing unheard-of in the fatherland until Herr Windthorst took the initiative. And the ladies are correspondingly grateful. When last year he celebrated his seventy-fifth birthday he had a groat number of addresses signed by ladies, and this year at the opening of the Keichstag, Herr Windthorst found his scat covered with flowers, sent by the Berlin Catholic ladies, \N henevor Prince Bismarck speaks, and howovev protracted the discourse, Herr Windthorst remains on his feet. He is even smaller than Douglas Jcrrold' or Thomas Moore, so that he seems to be seated when, in fact, he is standing. His hand in his waistcoat, his head somewhat forward, he listens without taking a note, for his sight permits him neither to read nor to write. Only now and then, at the most violent passages, his face lights up with a sarcastic smile. But his memory is so wonderful that inch by inch he refutes the Chancellor's points until the lattereven in his own opinion— has not a leg to stand on. He is the only man who has the knack of getting the Prinoe out of temper*

and lately he did it to such an extent that, throwing down his big carpenter's pencil, with which he is in the habit of taking notes, the Chancellor took up his hat ana left the chamber.