Page:Memoirs of Henry Villard, volume 1.djvu/43

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1853]
TO PHILADELPHIA
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them many Germans. We reached Camden after dark, and found the ferry-boat literally swarming with emigrant-runners, who at once beset us with their solicitations. Knowing the risk one was exposed to in trusting them, I felt called upon to warn the ignorant peasants among my countrymen against them. This made me at once the target for their foul abuse and threats. Nothing daunted, I tried, after landing on the other side, to save a party of South Germans from being carried off by three of the ruffians. They seized the baggage and loaded it without permission on their wagons, so as to compel the owners of it to follow. As the runners were Germans, I boldly denounced them before the crowd and called on them to desist. Thereupon all three suddenly fell upon me, swearing loudly, and, before I could defend myself, I was knocked down and probably should have fared very badly but for the intervention of a German-speaking official. My assailants, however, got away with their prey. The official kindly showed me the way to the inn where I intended to spend a day before continuing my journey West.

I wished to stop at this inn for a special reason. I had learned in New York that it was kept by a refugee, formerly a lawyer in my native town, a classmate of my father's, and a friend of long standing of all our family. He had been a member of the German Parliament, and the head of the provisional government that ruled over Rhenish Bavaria for two months in the summer of 1849, and was under sentence of death for that offence. I remembered him as a very good-natured and witty fellow, rather too much given to conviviality, but a gentleman withal. I expected to receive a hearty welcome and to have a good time with him. A disagreeable surprise awaited me. I found him entirely changed. He received me in a cold and indifferent manner, showing no astonishment at my appearance before him, as I naturally expected he would. His face wore a stolid expression and disclosed a red-

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