But the crowds on the Parisian boulevards and in _Unter den Linden_ took (and seemingly always will take) a very different view of life.

To them the news of the humiliation of the rival beyond the Rhine was the greatest and therefore the most welcome of sensations; and, unfortunately, the papers which pandered to their habits set the tone of thought for no small part of France and Germany and exerted on national policy an influence out of all proportion to its real weight.
The story of the Franco-German dispute is one of national jealousy carefully fanned for four years by newspaper editors and popular speakers until a spark sufficed to set Western Europe in a blaze.

The spark was the Hohenzollern candidature, which would have fallen harmless had not the tinder been prepared since Koeniggratz by journalists at Paris and Berlin.

The resulting conflagration may justly be described as due partly to national friction and partly to the supposed interests of the Napoleonic dynasty, but also to the heat engendered by a sensational Press.
It is well that one of the chief dangers to the peace of the modern world should be clearly recognised.

The centralisation of governments and of population may have its advantages; but over against them we must set grave drawbacks; among those of a political kind the worst are the growth of nervousness and excitability, and the craving for sensation--qualities which undoubtedly tend to embitter national jealousies at all times, and in the last case to drive weak dynasties or Cabinets on to war.