Читать книгу Pictures of the Socialistic Future (freely adapted from Bebel) онлайн

17 страница из 36

So far as we as a family are concerned we mean to make no change, but to remain faithful to those old trades we have got to like; so my son Franz, my future daughter-in-law Agnes, and I myself have entered our names accordingly. My wife has registered herself as an attendant at one of the children’s homes. By this means she proposes still to exercise her maternal care over our youngest child Annie, four years of age, whom we shall now, of course, have to yield up.

I may here mention that after the tumult in front of the palace, the Ministry deemed it prudent to reintroduce a body of police, which is to be four thousand strong, and to station them in part at the arsenal, and in part at the neighbouring barracks. With a view to avoiding all unpleasant reminiscences, the blue uniform will now be discontinued, and a brown one substituted for it. In place of a helmet the police are to wear large Rembrandt hats with red feathers.

ssss1

It was only with considerable trouble that Franz and I managed to-day to squeeze ourselves into the House situated in Bebel Square (the King’s Square of old days). A settlement was to be arrived at in respect of the savings bank funds. Franz informs me that amongst the 2,000,000 inhabitants of Berlin, there are no fewer than 500,000 depositors in the savings banks. No wonder, then, that the whole neighbourhood of the House, the entire expanse of Bebel Square, and the surrounding streets, were densely packed with persons mostly of the poorer clad sort, who awaited with breathless interest the decision of the House. The police, however, soon began to clear the streets.