THE REMINISCENCES OF CARL SCHURZ
we had to expect our arrest any moment. Whether it was really so, I did not know, but it was so believed; and our friends went at once to work to protect us from harm. They spread the impression among the citizens of Bonn that if we were touched by the police, all the students would quit the city. Now, as the prosperity of Bonn depended in a great measure upon the presence of the students, this caused no little alarm among the good burghers. Many of them urgently asked the Burgomaster to use his whole influence to obtain from the higher authorities the promise that nothing should happen to us, and thus to avert the threatening calamity. In fact we were informed by our friends in the course of a few days that such a promise had indeed been given, and that for once we should escape unharmed. We therefore left our hiding places, and I continued to write for our newspaper, to address meetings and to attend lectures, so far as I could find time to do so.
Frederick William IV., after having won his victory over the Constituent Assembly, felt himself strong enough to give to Prussia a constitution of his own exclusive making, without submitting it for assent to the representatives of the people. This constitution of his provided for a Diet consisting of two Chambers. The Chambers were convoked at once and Kinkel stepped forward in Bonn as a candidate for the lower House. He was elected by a large majority, and had to take his seat soon after. Frau Kinkel accompanied him to Berlin. Although they sent me regular contributions for the columns of the Bonner Zeitung, the daily duties of the editorship fell upon my shoulders during their absence as a very heavy burden of unaccustomed work.
The Bonner Zeitung having only a very small editorial staff, I had not only to furnish political articles, but also many other things which a daily paper must offer to its readers--
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