ould be hard to know in what they consist. The
passport system is enforced with all its rigours and impertinences; an
annual conscription is taken of its inhabitants, and the more solvent of
them perform military service (this may perhaps be considered a liberty),
as a national guard, with the additional luxury of providing their own
weapons and equipments. Moreover, they were, at the time I write of,
called upon to render certain services in case of an outbreak of fire:
one contributing a bucket, another a rope, and a third a ladder; none of
which articles, as might easily be imagined, were forthcoming when most
wanted. The city tolls were heavy, and stringently levied, and, what
more nearly concerned the exercise of public liberty and private
convenience, the city gates were nominally closed at a certain hour in
the evening, varied according to the season of the year, and were only to
be passed after the appointed period by the payment of a toll. It was
curious to see the people hurrying towards the Jacob Thor on a Sunday
evening as the hour of closing approached, jostling and mobbing each
other in their endeavours to escape the human poll tax.

But men are free, or in fetters, only by comparison; and although the
rule of the senate of Hamburg, when contrasted with British government,
can scarcely be called a liberal one, there is little doubt that
identical laws are in Hamburg less stringently carried out than in other
and most parts of the great German continent.

Seven months' stay in Hamburg found me eager to commence the march into
Germany, which I had long meditated. Five months had already elapsed
since Alcibiade, my French fellow-workman, had departed for Berlin
(paying eight dollars for the journey by post), and he had never written
to inform me of his fortunes. I was resolved to follow him, and, if
possible, to seek him out, for we were already sworn friends; but my
finances would only allow of a journey on foot. During twenty-eight
weeks of employment in Hamburg, I had received two hundred and three
marks banco in wages, which would yield, in round numbers, twelve pounds
sterling, or exactly an average receipt of five shillings per week.
Against this sum were to be placed: expenses for tools, five shillings
and sixpence; trade society and police, five shillings and tenpence;
clothing and washing, three pounds, one shilling and twopence; and rent
and extra board, one pound seven shillings. Seventeen v