Protection," and a white rod a foot and a half long designed to awaken
the respect accorded by the English to their constables. We recognized
many well-known men; but the Berlin populace, called by Goethe insolent,
is not easily impressed, and we saw constables surrounded by street boys
like an owl with a train of little birds fluttering teasingly around it.
Even grown persons called them nicknames and jeered at their sticks,
which they styled "cues" and "tooth-picks."

A large number of students, too, had expressed their readiness to join
this protective commission, either as constables or deputies, and had
received the wand and band at the City Hall.

How painful the exercise of their vocation was made to them it would be
difficult to describe. News from Austria and South Germany, where the
people's cause seemed to be advancing with giant strides to the desired
goal, hourly increased the offensive strength of the excited populace.

On the afternoon of the 16th the Potsdam Platz, only a few hundred steps
from our house, was filled with shouting and listening throngs, crowded
around the sculptor Streichenberg, his blond-bearded friend, and other
violently gesticulating leaders. This multitude received constant
reenforcements from the city and through Bellevuestrasse. On the left,
at the end of the beautiful street with its rows of budding chestnut-
trees, lay "Kemperhof," a pleasure resort where we had often listened to
the music of a band clad in green hunting costume. Many must have come
thence, for I find that on the 16th an assemblage was held there from
which grew the far more important one on the morning of the 17th, with
its decisive conclusion in Kopenickerstrasse.

At this meeting, on the afternoon of the 17th, it was decided to set on