The present study with pauperism, its causes, its prevention and its significance for the social evolution on the West-European continent, endeavours to provide for one of the gaps which social history, seen as a science of the social dynamics prevailing in history, brings to light. The Rhine-territory here is presented as an exceptionally suggestive illustration.

This investigation shows that both the social associations which the age of pauperism called up in defence against the distress of the masses, and the revolutionary tendencies are a determinant factor in the birth of the modem type of workman, as well as in the origin of the great West-European labour-organisations of the second half of the nineteenth century (trade-unions, cooperations and parties). The shaping of the Farmers'- and the Artisans'-Movement, particularly in Germany, is decisively influenced by them. This evolution of social associations means for the ruling classes the first attempt at neutralising the inner social tensions of the system of industrial capitalism.

Thus the age of pauperism and associations is a period of preparation, of great social-historical importance, without insight into which the later social evolution — upon which our times are based — can be understood and explained in but a very imperfect manner. The investigation of this period again shows the necessity of regarding social history as in independant part of the discipline of the discipline of the social sciences.

On going deeper into the life-history of Bakunin, it becomes evident that his first stay abroad (1840—1851) had been decisive for the whole of his spiritual development. Of quite special importance are his activities during the revolutionary epoch of 1848/49; this period of his life has hitherto not been considered with the attention it deserves. Bakunin's contributions to the “Dresdner Zeitung” in the months of March to May 1849 have not been explored at all up to the present.

The “Dresdner Zeitung was the organ of the Dresden Democrats. It appeared regularly from the 1st Oktober 1848 until the 6th August 1850. From being a fairly moderate paper, it gradually became more radical in 1848/49.

Decisive for the volte-face of the paper was the action of Bakunin who was staying in Dresden during the months March/May 1849 and who influenced Ludwig Wittig, one of the editors, to a considerable extent. A radical democrat with socialistic tendencies, already in early March, Wittig developed further and further to the left in the course of the stormy year of 1848. His impressions when in Vienna, where he had been sent by the Saxon democrats in 1848 in order to try arid effectuate the connections with the Vienna movement made him specially receptive for the final conclusions, which Bakunin drew from the events.

The exceptional interest of Benbow's pamphlet Grand National Holiday and Congress of the Productive Classes has already been stressed by Beer1), Crook2) and Dolléans3) who quote extensive passages.

What they communicate, however, does not seem to make a complete reprint of this pamphlet superfluous. Benbow's writings derive their importance not only from their showing us one of the most striking facets of the so many-sided social thinking in the England of the beginning of the nineteenth century, but also, and not least, from their being the first written theory about the general strike. These two considerations justify a reproduction of a pamphlet which is difficult of access to those interested, and certainly so outside England4).

On his second journey abroad Leo N. Tolstoi took the opportunity of making the acquaintance of Alexander Hertzen. He spent two or three weeks in London and saw him very much.

Literature, however, has very few data about their meeting, and thus the letters published here, more or less fill this gap. They had been preserved in that part of Hertzen' archives which his children in the beginning of the year 1880 gave to Professor M. Dragomanow for publication. Together with the latter's other papers, they are now to be found in the Russian Historical Archives in Prague.

The letters are of the greatest importance to Tolstoi's biographers, and definitely allow of the exact time being fixed when Tolstoi decided to write a novel entitled; Die Dekabristen, which however, has remained unfinished.

This happened in the late autumn of the year 1860 in Florence, where Tolstoi met Prince S. G. Volkonksy who may be regarded as the prototype of Peter Labasov out of the first version of “Die Dekabristen”.

Although Hertzen was very keen on Tolstoi's writing this book, he himself unintentionally side-tracked him from the Dekabrists by introducing him to Proudhon. The latter at this time was engaged on his book Der Krieg und der Frieden. Immediately after meeting Proudhon, Tolstoi put aside “Die Dekabristen” and-started his War and Peace.

The published letters, moreover, give an explanation of Tolstoi's standpoint towards the mainfesto of 19th February 1861, announcing the liberation of the peasants.

This essay, as a section out of the history of the Newspaper-Press, deals with the collaboration between agitational papers and street-terrorism on the basis of characteristic examples. The author draws a distinction between partial and absolute terrorism. In the case of the former, a minority by means of intimidation with violence, presses the majority and their prominent leaders to political actions which in all human probability they would never have decided upon on their own initiative.

The American War of Independence is quoted as an example, or rather the deeds of violence which, as practised by a radical minority, influenced the course of event.

A sketch is then given of the importance of the American Press, at that time in its infancy, with regard to the political successes of the young government, both at home and abroad.

As an instance of absolute terrorism, the reign of terror of the French Revolution is taken. There the terrorists themselves seized the power. A survey is given of the various agitational papers and their methods, Their development is described up to the institution of a press-dictatorship by Napoleon Bonaparte. Finally the attention is drawn to the causes of the intimidating effect of the War-Press in times of political tension, all of which is based on historical instances taken from the latter half of the 19th century.

The essay endeavours to prove that in social-psychological descriptions it frequently occurs that insufficient attention is paid to the part played by coercion and intimidation.

The periodical press offers adequate information to permit of ascertaining the leading ideas and their modifications during agitated times. At the same time, its pages reveal the modifications in the views of the leading men and their influence on the masses.

Accurate and specialized research on the basis of similar material taken from the history of the Newspaper-Pres, will complete and justify many a theory on mass-passions and mass-disturbances of reason in the field of social psychology.

Karl Friedrich Köppen was born on the 28th of April, 1808, at Niedergörne, the son of a clergyman. After having attended the Latin School (“Gymnasium”) at Stendal and the Latin Convent school (“Klostergymnasium”) of Magdeburg, he took up the study of divinity in Berlin in the year 1827, but eventually became a teacher. In 1833 he was appointed at a Berlin school. Four years later he wrote a “Literary Introduction into Nordic Mythology” which has retained its value to the present day and the anti-clerical tendency of which revealed him as one of those radical diciples of Hegel who grouped themelves around A Ruge's “Hallische Jahrbücher” Their aim was: “Away from the Christian state and from State-Christendom'” In the “Doktorklub”, the Berlin center of these Young-Hegelians, Köppen mixed with Bruno Bauer and Karl Marx. Under the influence of Marx, the pen of this most prolific of contributors, to the “Jahrbücher” quickly increaed in sharpness. A jubilant publication of 1840, dedicated to his “friend K. H. Marx of Trier”, entitled “Frederick the Great and his adversaries”, proved a publicistic masterpiece which supplied Marx with suggestionss and gained Köppen the recognition of Engels. This publication focussed its secret hopes in the ascent to the throne by Frederick William IV; the Reaction, however, which set in soon after the change of government, crushed the buds of Young-Hegelian idealism.