The principles of sport generally, it may be here interpolated, are not quite the same in Germany as in England, though no country has imitated England in regard to sport so closely and successfully as Germany.  Up to a comparatively few years ago the Germans had neither inclination nor means for it, and though always enthusiastic hunters, hunting—­not the English fox-hunting, but hunting the boar and the bear, the wolf and the deer—­was almost the sole form of manly sport practised. Turnen, the most popular sort of German indoor gymnastics, only began in 1861, a couple of years after the birth of the Emperor.  There are now nearly a dozen cricket clubs alone in Berlin, football clubs all over the Empire, tennis clubs in every town, rowing clubs at all the seaports and along the large rivers, nearly all following English rules and in numerous cases using English sporting terms.  At the same time sport is not the religion it is in England—­indeed, to keep up the metaphor, hardly a living creed.

The German attitude towards sport is not altogether the same as the English attitude.  In England the object of the game is that the best man shall win, that he shall not be in any way unfairly or unequally handicapped vis-a-vis his opponent, and the honour, not the intrinsic value of the prize, is the main consideration.  These principles are not yet fully understood or adopted in Germany, possibly owing to the early military training of the German youth making the carrying off the prize anyhow and by any means the main object.  It is Realpolitik in sport, and a Realpolitik which is not wholly unknown in England; but while the spirit of Realpolitik is still perceivable in German sport, it is equally perceivable that the standard English way of viewing sporting competition is becoming more and more approached in Germany.

The Emperor is an enthusiastic patron of sport of all healthy outdoor kinds, not as sympathizing with the English youth’s disposition to regard play as work and work as play, to give to his business any time he can spare from his sport, but because he estimates at its full value its place in the national health-budget.  His personal likings are for bear-shooting, deer-stalking, and yachting, but he also wields the lawn-tennis racket and the rapier with fair skill.  The names of several of his hunting lodges—–­Rominten, Springe, Hubertusstock, and so on—­are familiar to many people in all countries.  Rominten preserve is in East Prussia, and embraces about four square miles, with little lakes and some rising ground.  September is the Emperor’s favourite month for visiting it.  Here one year he shot a famous eight-and-twenty-ender antelope, which had come across from Russian territory.  Before the present reign the deer, or pig, or other wild animal used to be beaten up to the royal sportsman of the day, but that practice has long ceased, and the Emperor has to tramp many a mile, and at times crawl on all fours for hundreds of yards, to get a shot.