At last a constitution has been given the two conquered provinces. The governor is to be advised by a parliament, but the government is not responsible to the parliament, which is composed of two houses. The upper house has thirty-six members, eighteen of whom are nominees of the Emperor and eighteen from the churches, universities, and principal cities. The lower house is to be elected by popular franchise. Three years' residence in the same place entitles a man to a vote, but every voter over thirty-five years of age has two votes, and every voter over forty-five has three votes. This, as an American can appreciate, has not been received with enthusiasm, and their conduct has been so provoking that the Emperor, during a recent visit, scolded the people, in an interview with the mayor of a certain town, and, what caused great amusement among the enemies of Prussia, threatened to incorporate them into Prussia, as had been done with Hanover, if they were not better behaved. This, of course, was seized upon as an admission that to be taken into the Prussian family was of all the hardships the most dreadful. The socialist journal Vorwaerts spoke of Prussia as "that brutal country which thus openly confesses its dishonor to all the world." Herr Scheidemann asked in the Reichstag, if Prussia then acknowledged herself to be a sort of house of correction, and "has Prussia, then, become the German Siberia?" In 1911 the Reichstag gave the provinces three votes in the Federal Council. Metz, it is said, is more French than ever, and thousands troop across the boundaries on the anniversary of the French national holiday, to celebrate it on French soil. The conquered provinces are kept in order, but the French language, French customs, French culture, are still to the fore, and so far as loyalty, affection, or a change of mind and heart is concerned the conversion is still incomplete. The inhabitants have been baptized Germans, but very few of them have taken voluntarily, their first communion of nationalization. "On changerait plutot le coeur de place, Que de changer la vieille Alsace."