t danger threatened from fresh conflicts between the army and
the people, and it was to the fear of this that various young or
elderly gentlemen owed their office of going about wherever a crowd
was assembled and urging the populace to keep the peace. They were
distinguished by a white band around the arm bearing the words,
"Commissioner of 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 foot a peaceful manifestation of the wishes of the people, and a new
address to the king was drawn up. It was settled that on the 28th of
March, at two o'clock, thousands of citizens with the badges of the
protective commission should appear before the palace and send in a
deputation to his Majesty with a document which should clearly convey