THE REMINISCENCES OF CARL SCHURZ
cleaning his cell. A little gift of sweetmeats, which his family sent at Christmas-time, was delivered to him. But he was still obliged to spin wool; and when our good Strodtmann, at that time a student in Bonn, appealed to the popular heart in Kinkel's behalf, in a poem called the “Spinning Song,” the young poet was promptly dismissed from the university.
In the meantime the preparations for the trial of those who had taken part in the attack upon the Siegburg armory in May, 1849, went on in Cologne, and early in the year 1850 there was a rumor that the government intended to transport Kinkel from Naugard to Cologne in the spring, for the purpose of having him also tried for that revolutionary attack.
In February, 1850, I received a letter from Kinkel's wife. In burning colors she described to me the terrible situation of her husband and the distress of the family. But this high-spirited and energetic woman did not speak to me in the tone of that impotent despair which pusillanimously submits to an overpowering fate. The thought that it must be possible to find ways and means for the liberation of her husband gave her no rest day and night. For months she had been corresponding with friends in whose character she had confidence and whose energy she hoped to excite. Some of them had discussed with her plans for the rescue of her husband, and others had put sums of money at her disposal. But, so she wrote, nobody had shown himself ready to undertake the dangerous enterprise himself. What was needed, she said, was a friend who had sufficient tenacity of purpose, and who would devote his whole strength to the work until it should have succeeded. She herself would make the attempt did she not fear that her appearance in the vicinity of her husband's prison would at once excite suspicion and stimulate the watchfulness of his keepers. But it was necessary to act promptly, before the gnawing tortures
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