"That's Zitz of Mayence," said the professor, as a heavy-looking demagogue stumbled clumsily up to the tribune.
"Oh! that's Zitz, is it?" replied I. "Well, professor, I think I have had quite enough of the Assembly for one morning, and as I feel a certain craving for a cigar, I think I shall leave you for the present."
"Won't you dine to-day at the Swan?" said Klingemann, "most of my friends of the left frequent the table-d'hote there, and I should like to introduce you to Zitz."
"Thank you!" said I, "I shall be punctual, and pray keep a place for me;" and so for the present we parted.
"The dunderheads!" thought I, as I emerged into the street and lit an undeniable havannah, "here is a nation which, for thirty years past, has been eating its sauer-kraut and sausages in peace, paying almost no taxes, and growing its own wine and tobacco, about to be plunged into irretrievable misery and ruin, by a set of selfish hounds who look to nothing beyond their stipend of five florins a-day! Heaven help the idiots! what would they be at? They have got all manner of constitutions, liberty of the press—though there is not a man in Germany who could write a decent leading article—and a great deal more freedom than is good for them already. And now the world is to be turned upside down, because a parcel of trash, not a whit more respectable than Cuffey and his confederates, and very nearly as stupid, have taken the notion of unity into their heads, and are resolved to build up, with rotten bricks, the ricketty structure of an empire. Nicholas, my dear friend, there is work chalked out for you, and ready. If these scum presume to meddle with their neighbours, they must be crushed like a hive of hornets; and I do not know any foot so heavy and elephantine as your own!"
Pondering these things deeply, I strolled on from shop to shop, gleaning everywhere as I went statistics touching the manner in which our free-trade innovations have affected the industry of Great Britain. For a year and a half, the boot and shoe trade has been remarkably thriving; the London market being the most profitable in the world, and nothing but British gold exported in return. As to cotton manufactures, Belgium and Switzerland have the monopoly of Southern Germany. The trade in Bohemian glass is rapidly superseding at home the labour of the silversmith. A complete service, so beautiful that it might be laid out on the table of a prince, costs about thirty pounds; and the names of the British magnates, which the dealer pointed to with ineffable triumph as purchasers, were so numerous as to convince me that the deteriorating influence of free trade was rapidly rising upwards. The same may be said of the cutlery, which is now sent to undersell the product of the British artisan in his own peculiar market. When we couple those facts, which may be learned in every Continental town, with the state of our falling revenue, and the grievous direct burden which is imposed upon us in the shape of property and income tax, it is difficult for any Briton to understand upon what grounds the financial reputation of Sir Robert Peel is based, or to comprehend the wisdom of adhering to a system which sacrifices every thing in favour of the foreigner, and brings us in return no earthly recompense or gain.
I duly kept my engagement at the Swan, and was introduced by the Professor to Zitz, Gervinus, and some more of the radical party. The dinners at the Swan are unexceptionable; indeed, out of Paris, it is impossible to discover better.
"What do you think of our German parliament?" asked a deputy of the name of Neukirch, next whom I was seated. "It must be an interesting sight for an Englishman to behold the aspirations of our rising freedom."
"Oh, charming!" I replied: "and such splendid oratory—we have nothing like it in the House of Commons."
"Do you really think so?" said Neukirch, looking absurdly gratified.