elopment of consumption in
goods. They quoted triumphantly the amount of importations, the great
increase in silk, artistic furniture, glass, jewelry, valuable wines,
spices, liqueurs, was called a splendid development of trade; wonderful
evidence of the prosperity of all classes, and an elevation of the
manner of life of the German people. And if moralists failed to see in
these heated desires and idle display, the presence of progress and
blessing, they were called limited Philistines, who were too
feeble-minded to recognize the signs of the times.

The position of the workingman profited by the new condition of things.
Berlin seemed insatiable in her demands for able-bodied workmen.
Hundreds and thousands left the fields and the woods, and taking their
strong arms to the labor market of the capital, found employment in the
factories and the workshops; and the mighty engines still beat, sucking
in as it were the stream of people from the country. Berlin itself
could not contain this influx. The newcomers were obliged gypsy fashion
to put up as best they could in the neighborhood. In holes and caves on
the heaths and commons, in huts made of brushwood, they bivouacked for
months, and these men who lived like prairie dogs in such apparent
misery were merry over their houseless, wild existence. As a matter of
fact they experienced no actual want, as there was work for every one
who could and would labor. The rewards were splendid, and the
proletariat found that its only possession, viz., the strength of its
muscles, was worth more than ever before. The workingman talked loudly,
and held his head high. Was it the result of having served in one or
more campaigns? Had he in the background of his mind a vision of dying
men and desolate villages, seen so often on the battlefield? However it
was, he became violent and quarrelsome, indifferent alike to wounding
and death, and learned to make use of the knife like any cutthroat
townsman.

With this return to barbarism (an unfailing result with the soldier
after every time of war) went a degree of animal spirits, which made
one ask whether the workman had learned something of epicurean
philosophy. He had the same excited love of tattling as a thoughtless
girl, and the animal love of enjoyment of a sailor after a long voyage.
His ordinary life seemed to him so uninteresting, so dull, that he
tried to give color and charm to it by taking as many holidays as
possible, and making h