REVOLUTION IN PRUSSIA.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume IV, Issue 315, 5 August 1848, Page 3

REVOLUTION IN PRUSSIA.

We have received the following account of the disturbances which took place at Berlin on the 15th and 16th of March. We take it from the Prussian Gazette : — " During the day of the 18th numerous gatherings in all the streets assembled about noon on the Schlossplatz. The crowd was immense. As evening clcsed in the people began to throw stones from the pavement at the soldiery stationed at the castle gates. The requests to the crowd to disperse were of no avail, and the stone throwing continued. It was necessary to call out the cavalry to clear the place. The crowd, in their flight, ran into the Brit Strasse, where they endeavoured to make a stand, as well as in other neighbouring streets, and attempted to impede the motions of the troops by breaking up the streets and bridges. The soldiery sent to resist these movements were again assailed with stones, and it was only by having recourse to arms that they could induce the people to disperse. The restoration of order and tranquillity was not effected without bloodshed. Persons have been wounded, and others, it is said, killed. This morning the authorities have been informed of one death. The people adopted every expedient by which they could barass the soldiery, who showed the most perfect calmuess throughout. The members of the protesting commission, which had been

formed among the citizens, used the most laudable endeavours to induce the people to disperse. At eleven o'clock at night tranquillity was completely restored in all the streets." Such is the account of the Prussian Gazette, hut to judge by other correspondence from Berlin, the affair was much more important. On the 15th, at night, a constabulary force was formed, whose members wore, as a distinctive mark, a black and white stripe on the left arm. A proclamation was issued claiming for the constables the respect of the people. The military authorities promised to retain the soldiery in their barracks so long as the personal safety of the public was respected. But the infantry suddenly charged the crowd on the Castle-place at the moment when the constabulary were mixing r/ith them, and exhorting them to disperse. The people were violently thrown back upon the streets in the vicinity of the castle. They halted and established several barricades, which they defended with stoves against the soldiery sent to dislodge them. The troops made use of their fire arms, and fired several times. A great many men of the people fell. The infantry and the cavalry went to pursue those who fled, and killed several, with the same brutality which they have exhibited throughout the disturbance, and which has excited the strongest indignation in the minds of the narrators of events at Berlin. The Minister of the Interior, Count de Bodelschwingb, has instituted an inquiry into the conduct of a troop of cuirassiers, whom the citizens accuse of charging the people without any provocation. Several gun and iron shops are said to have been plundered, and numerous arrests have taken place. The number of the wounded and killed is not yel exactly known, but it must be considerable. Many soldiers were wounded, it is said, by the stones thrown by the people, and the axes with which many amongst the crowd were armed. On the 16th, the students of the Universities of Berlin and Halle, forming a procession of about one thousand eight hundred men, went to the royal palace to present a petition to the King, who had departed in all haste to Potsdam. A telegraphic despatch, addressed by the Minister of the Interior to the President of the Rhenish province, and dated Berlin the 17th, announces that tranquillity had not been disturbed since the previous day. Disturbances also took place on the 16th at Magdenburgh, the chief town of Prussian Saxony. The military appeared suddenly and charged the people sword in hand. Many persons have been wounded. At Solinguen, a kind of Rhenish Birmingham on a small scale, the revolted work people have destroyed the iron-works belonging to the Prussian Maritime Society, whom they accused of depriving them of their employment by the impediments they offered to private enterprise. Troops had been despatched from Dusseldorf. In the little Rhenish principality of Wittgenstein, the country people have revolted, and are doing great damage to the small towns of Lassphe and Ber- j lebourg ; they went to the castle and extorted from the Prince several concessions respecting the use of thi princely forests. At Lippstadt, the citizens formed spontaneously a civic guard, armed themselves with cudgels, and maintained tranquillity, af- . ter taking iato custody nine or tea ot the ringleaders.