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Show AN IMPORTANT ACCIDENT. A slight accident sometimes changes the course of history, and this may be the case with the fall which Prince Bismarck Bis-marck had from his horse a few days since. Bismarck is well advanced in j'ears, and at his time of life a fall is a thing from which one rarely recovers.' General Grant never recovered from the fall which he had a year or so before his death, while that fall probably hastened his death. If this fall which Bismarck has just received should prove more serious than is now thought, what would be the result upon the destiny of the German Empire? So closely has the life of Bismarck been interwoven in-terwoven with the greatness of Prussia that it is almost impossible to contemplate contem-plate the one separately from the other. He has united Germany and made Prussia Prus-sia foremost in that union, while to united Germany he has given the foremost position posi-tion on the Continent. The work of his life has been the building up " of one of the greatest empires the world has ever seen. But the destiny of that empire is not3ret accomplished. Perhaps its destiny des-tiny may be greatly different from the destiny of which Bismarck dreams. That the German Chancellor will have no successor suc-cessor is certain. Men may succeed to the place which he now fills, but it would be a thing almost without precedent for him to have a successor his equal in the greatness which nature has bestowed upon him. His son Herbert is said to be a man of superior abilities, but it is not 'likely that he is the peer of his father. The young Augustus was great, but he was not so great, as was, Caesar.. The younger Pitt was not the equal of the I Great Commoner, although he was great among the great. Napoleon is unique among the Buonapartes; in fact he is unique among men. . This accident to Bismarck may be of the greatest-importance to the world, and many times a mere accident changes the destinies of nations. It has been said that a dish of garlic changed the fate of the world on the fatal twenty-first of June, 1815; and it is possible that a harseback fall will be as potent to influence in-fluence the destinies of nations as was that dish of garlic. |