The Economic Functions of Vice | Page 5

obstructive.
The only Bourbon still remaining on a throne is the King of Spain, and
his teeth are on edge from the sour grapes of unchastity which his
fathers and mothers ate.
Like his grandmother, the notorious Isabella II, his father, aunts, and
cousins, and indeed every one of the Bourbons, he is a sad physical
weakling.
The physicians politely term "scrofulous diathesis" the syphilitic taint
of the Bourbon blood. In his grandmother it showed itself in a repulsive
cutaneous disease which she tried to ameliorate or cure in a truly
Bourbonish way, by having her underclothing previously worn by a
nun of high repute for piety.
Alfonso's XIII.'s father burned himself out at the age of 28. His aunts
and kinsmen all had some one or more of scrofula's varied physical
degradations and deformities, and went out from time to time like
ill-made candles.
Though the hopes of his race and the peace of his country depend upon
Alfonso's life, all the care given him in his boyhood could do no more
than slightly mitigate the ancestral blight.
* * *
A FEW years ago the people of Holland were threatened with a most
serious calamity. Depraved heredity, unwise sexual selection, or some
other primal cause had resulted in the production, as the Prince of
Orange the Crown Prince of an individual of a weak, inferior, and
depraved nature. His was such a nature as on a throne becomes a
fountain of numberless oppressions and evils, and rarely fails to goad
the unhappy subjects into rebellion, attended with the usual frightful

loss of life and property and vast sorrows. Fortunately he had
destructive vices. The appetite for these led him to Paris. A few years
of riot and debauchery sapped away the dangerous life of "Lemons," as
his worthless boon-companions named him, and he died as the fool
dieth. The only harm he was able to do was the indirect damage of a
bad example, and the good people of the Netherlands were rid of a
possible Louis XV. at no greater cost than that of some years of
extravagant life in the French capital. His father's evil excesses and
penchant for pretty ballet-girls left as his only successor a young not
over-strong girl, who thus far has failed to produce an heir to the throne,
to the deep disappointment of such of her people as love royalty.
Holland will, therefore, in all probability, glide into a republic without
the usual sanguinary convulsions attending such transitions.
IT is the story of the Ages old when the Pyramids were yet young ; new
to every generation. Hannibal's victorious army found the " soft
delights of Capua" far more deadly than Roman swords. That famous
"Winter in Capua" wrecked the invaders, saved Rome, and ruined
Carthage.
IN conspicuous contrast to the royal and aristocratic families just
alluded to are the houses of Hohenzollern and Savoy.
A thrifty burgher of Nuremberg, eager to get into the landed aristocracy
on any terms, foreclosed a mortgage on a stretch of most unpromising
sand and swamp around Brandenberg. It was of so little worth as to be
frequently spoken of as "the sandbox of the Holy Roman Empire." The
Hohenzollerns attacked this uninviting problem with real German thrift
and tenacity. They resolved to make their swamps and sand barrens
productive like the rich lands of their neighbors.
Flinching from no drudgery themselves, they would allow none of their
people to do so. Every Hohenzollern son and daughter was brought up
to unsparing hard work, severe economy, plain food and coarse
clothing, with a rigid code of morals.
At the time when the example of Louis XIV. was debauching every
German princeling into having a showy court with a pretentious palace

and a tinseled retinue, all wrung from the poor peasantry, the King of
Prussia was running his court after the manner of a close-fisted,
land-gaining German farmer.
Cabbages that could not be sold were served on the royal tables in order
to save a few thalers for the support of the army, and add to the war
chest.
The shabby appointments of the palace were the derision of Europe.
The common people of Prussia had, however, a much larger share of
what their labor produced than those of any other part of Europe. The
King not only set a good example in making the most out of everything,
but he personally carried lessons of industry and frugality into his
people, high and low.
There were occasionally black sheep in even such a sternly regulated
family, but as a general rule the sons and daughters married strong,
clean mates, and strictly maintained the family traditions. A provision
against the wayward princelings was made by which their possessions
passed into the main house if they fell below the standard.