64 THE BERLIN REVOLUTION. 



On me this scene in the Schlossplatz produced 

 an ineffaceable impression. It showed with such im- 

 mistakeable plainness the perilous fickleness of an 

 excited multitude and the impossibility of predicting its 

 actions. It taught me also that it is not usually the 

 large and weighty questions that agitate the masses but 

 petty grievances long felt by everybody as oppressive. 

 The prohibition of smoking in the streets and parti- 

 cularly in the Thiergarten. with the constant petty 

 warfare with gendarmes and watch -men connected with 

 it. formed in fact about the only hardship really com- 

 prehended by the great mass of the Berlin populace, 

 and for which it in truth contended. 



With the victory of the Revolution all serious 

 activity was put a stop to for a time in Berlin. The 

 w r hole governmental machine seemed out of gear. The 



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telegraph commission had simply ceased to do anything 

 without being abolished or even only suspended. I owe 

 it to the energy of my friend Halske. that our work- 

 shop quietly continued its activity during the hard 

 times ensuing and manufactured telegraphic apparatus, 

 although there was an entire lack of orders. Personally 

 I \vas in a difficult position, as my official activity 

 had ceased without anv other being assigned me. and 



/ o o 



on the other hand it did not do to request my 

 discharge at a time when it was generally assumed 

 that a foreign war was imminent. 



Then again, as so often in inv life, an event 



C) v 



occurred, which gave it a new and ultimately favourable 



c? / 



direction. 



