Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 February 1886 — A Model Kingdom. [ARTICLE]

A Model Kingdom.

This Kingdom of Bavaria, which next to Prussia is the largest constituent part of the German Empire, has an area about equal to the principal part of the State of Michigan, known as the Lower Peninsula; and on this a population subsists without distress, numbering as many as that of the whole £Jtate of New York, the city, Long Island and all, but setting aside the City of Brooklyn. This statement of the area and population of Bavaria leaves out of account that detached fragment of the kingdom known as the Rheinpfalz, separated from the main body of the country by 100 miles and lying on the Bhine. The soil of Bavaria is made productive only by constant attention to its chemical needs and by careful cultivation; but wherever in the country you Bee them, the people ‘appear to be well fed, well clothed and contented. Three times in my life I have gone through the length or breadth of Bavaria, and I have never seen a beggar anywhere within its borders, in town or country. This mav be owing largely to one of the good and wise acts of Napoleon Bonaparte, that the Congress of Vienna, after his downfall, dared not disturb. He found the church had absorbed and the monks had possession of more than one-third of all the land of Bavaria. In a comparatively small bnt fertile district he found twelve large monasteries, their inmates luxuriating upon the fat of the land, while the tillers of the soil subsisted most miserably; this was called the Plaffenwinkle, or the Priests’ Corner. Napoleon confiscated these and all other lands of the church, except such as were directly needed for church purposes, and vested them by decree in the Bavarian Government, which by another decree from him divided and sold them in small parcels, on easy terms, to the people. Ontside the cities, therefore, the land of Bavaria is divided among over half a million proprietors, in lots of from five to thirty acres, though a very few have forty to fifty. Around the cities the holdings do not average over an acre or tVo; but these afford a living for a family in the growing of vegetables for market, its members finding time for. tabor elsewhere, also; and no matter how small the holding it is a freehold. —•, Alpha Child in Boston Transcript.