But to look on the bright side. If the employé has died insolvent, the sorrowing matron, who was bowed down to earth with grief and tears, rises consoled. She is a female pensioner. Her husband is gone, her home, her love, her independence,—all are gone; but she herself must stay. Government has bought her. She has become its property, and cannot now leave the country, unless she likes to leave her pension behind her. Austria turns her paper money into chains, by which she holds her poor pensioner, as a boy holds a bird or a cockchafer by a string. See this ward of government, clad in a rusty black dress of doubtful condition; on her head a black bonnet that has seen its best days, from which hangs a long black veil; on her arm hangs a long black reticule; on her pale lips a long tale of privation and misery. This is her picture at she goes every three months to draw her pitiful allowance—proving by the attestation of the parish rector that she is alive, that she is herself, and none other. Just the same, too, is she when she goes her new year’s rounds to her late husband’s Chiefs and colleagues, and to those members of the Imperial family most notorious for their benevolence. On these annual occasions she carries needlework and trifles to be raffled for, and thinks herself happy if she can buy an extra log for her stove, or a pound of meat for her broth, from the proceeds. Thus she drags on her weary life, barely escaping, as _pauvre honteuse_, the misery, shame, and degradation of downright beggary. Such is the career of an Austrian employé; and this sketch is equally characteristic of every employé in the Austrian service, whether civil or military, or under whatever denomination he serves. In each and every case the salary of the officials are so utterly inadequate to their wants, that they are urged by the necessities of their position to devote all their talents and energies to make money by any means in their power. Their official rank and influence are available to extort a bribe and to screen the guilty parties. Where all are corrupt who is to denounce the offender? This too faithful picture of an Austrian official will serve as a clue to unravel the mystery of those enormous defalcations which have recently come to light in the Austrian administration. Startling as they are to English readers, those who are acquainted with the secret practices of Austrian bureaucracy can only wonder that the late astounding frauds were discovered at all—so intricate and wide-spread is the network of chicanery and intrigue which enmeshes the Austrian system of administration. Sir Self and Womankind. Sir Self-Sufficient on his mule Went ambling stiffly o’er the ground. Quoth he: “This womankind doth rule Where’er a fool or slave is found; For she is full of craft and wiles, And dresses all her looks for show, But not her cunning nor her smiles Shall win a heart from me, I trow.”