We have to-day, in an area of 208,780 square miles, 5,604 square miles representing the lately conquered territory of Alsace-Lorraine, a population of 64,903,423, of whom 1,028,560 are subjects of foreign powers. To defend this area there are to be, according to figures estimated even as this volume goes to press, a million men under arms in the army and navy. Their enormous progress in trade, in industry, in shipbuilding, is set out in full in every year-book, for the curious to ponder. In so short a time, on so poor a soil, in such a restricted space, with such a past of distress and disaster, and dealing with such conflicting interests, a like success in nation-building is unparalleled. Industrial and martial beehive though it would seem to be, there are provided for the native and the foreigner feasts of music, of art, and of study that cost little. There are quiet streams, lovely, lonely walks, and quaint towns that are nests of archaeological interest. In Weimar, in Stuttgart, in Schwerin, in Duesseldorf, in Karlsruhe, not to mention Munich, Leipsic, Dresden, Berlin, Frankfort, Hamburg, there are centres of culture. The best that the mind of man creates is still spread out there as of yore for whomsoever will to partake, but ever in less abundance and with less enthusiasm. And these names are a mere fraction of the number of such places. The rivalries between the states is now to a large extent an elevating rivalry of culture, dotting the map of Germany with resting-places for the curious, the scholarly, or the sentimental traveller. You may have plain living and high thinking in scores of the cities and towns of Germany, and you will be considered neither an outcast nor an eccentric; indeed, you will find no small part of the population your companions. You may stroll for miles on the banks of that tiny stream the Zschopau, and expect to see sprites and nymphs, so hidden are its windings; and where in all the world will a handkerchief cover an Ulm, an Augsburg, a Rothenburg, Ansbach, Nuremberg, Wuerzburg, with their wealth of associations? The Fugger family, of Augsburg, tell us again that there is nothing new in the world. Five hundred years ago they were millionaires. One of these Fuggers had a voice even in the election of Charles V, and we are still hard at it trying to keep our Fuggers from meddling in politics. Another Fugger, Marcus by name, wrote a capital book on the horse in the sixteenth century, and at the last horse-show at Olympia, in 1912, a Fugger came over from Germany and took away the first prize for officers' chargers. So far flung was their fame as money-lenders that usury was called "Fuggerei"!