Among the festivities which were arranged for the benefit of the Congressists was an excursion to the Lake of Lucerne. It was a grand trip. We had a collation at Lucerne. Of course toasts were made; but all after dinner eloquence evaporates with the froth of the champagne. Nevertheless, something that Ruchonnet said—not in a speech but in conversation with his vis-à-vis—made a great impression on me, and I copied it into my diary. Some one had spoken of the objection that is often heard made by the opposing party that it would be an impossibility, a misfortune, to reduce the armies—it would be simply unthinkable from the standpoint of civilization and political economy. Then Ruchonnet made this comparison: If to-day, by some misfortune, the sun should be darkened, then men would use every effort to provide artificial light and artificial heat; new industries and new professions would come into existence; and then, if after a few generations people should come along with the proposition to abolish the sun’s eclipse, there would be a general outcry, “That would be a calamity, an impossibility—what would become of the heat factories, of the numberless light-makers?” On the day after the excursion to Lucerne the deliberations were resumed. First of all, A. G. von Suttner took the floor to protest against the false, distorted reports of a certain correspondent. The person inculpated had done nothing less than to send the newspapers a telegram in which the opening assembly was pictured as a turbulent scene among people who were stirring up war in their own camp. The speaker read aloud the distorted reports in question, which had furthermore given the foreign press material for sarcastic comments, and called on the chair to send an official denial to the newspapers; and this was done. It proved later that the correspondent was an avowed opponent, who had declared to a colleague that he was not willing that the movement should take root in Switzerland. There did come a somewhat lively scene in the course of the Congress, however, when the Polish member of the Austrian Parliament made a speech in which he demanded the restoration of Poland as an independent kingdom. Ducommun, who was in the chair at that session, as well as several other speakers, notably Frédéric Passy, laid down the law to the Polish patriot, who would not accept the partition of his fatherland, declaring that the Congress could not possibly occupy itself with the revision of Polish history. The justice of the future is to be made ready for; the individual injustices of history cannot now be rectified, for all the divisions of the land as at present constituted are based on the ground of force; new laws, new ordinances—and they must be worked for—have no retroactive power.