ABSTRACT
The civil service laws, applied rather flexibly to, and often to the advantage of, high officials, were very rigidly applied to lower officials. With tlie exception of a few cases resulting from the benevolence of personal influence of high authorities or the benefit of imperial favoritism, its rigidity could easily claim the first place in the government where reason generally overruled law. The structure of the laws was as hierarchic as those of the Prussian army. Inability to fulflll all these requirements would lead to lack of respect
from one's colleagues as well as from the people, hence difficulties in the performance of duties_ Personal influence or imperial favor could only bend the laws but not the people whom the favored candidates had to face.
