The condition of the working-classes in this country is a subject of
intense interest to all thinking men; but it is profitable as well as
amusing to transfer our attention sometimes to the same portions of
society in other countries. In Germany, for instance, the people are
as busy as we are with their 'hand-workers,' and the questions of
freedom of industry and general instruction are as warmly discussed as
at home. We have now before us a little volume by the philosopher and
historian, Zschokke, which, in the form of a fictitious narrative,
treats very fully of the status of the mechanic in Fatherland; and we
are tempted to cull a few extracts which may afford the reader
materials for perhaps an interesting comparison.[3]

The real hero of the story is Hand-labour, and his progress is
described throughout three generations of men. He is the Thought of
the book, illustrated by adventure and vicissitude; living when the
human agents die in succession; and leaving a distinct and continuous
track in the reader's mind, when the names and persons fade or
conglomerate in his memory. And yet some of these names and persons
are not feebly individualised. The father, the son, and the grandson
stand well out upon the canvas; and while the family likeness is
strictly preserved from generation to generation, the men are seen
independent and alone, each in his own special development. The
patriarch was a travelling tinker, who wheeled his wares about the
country in a barrow; and then, rising in the world, attained the
dignity of a hawker, with a cart of goods, drawn by a little gray ass.
His son Jonas trotted on foot beside him in all his journeys, dining
like his father on bread and water, and sleeping in barns or stables.
But when the boy was old enough, he was turned off to pick up his own
subsistence like the redbreasts, the sparrows, and the woodpeckers.