3-011-863 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Schleswig-Holstein Difficulty: great meeting in favour of Prince Frederick at Elmshorn, Holstein, 1864. '...the great open-air meeting...was a scene of the greatest enthusiasm...there were 20,000 Holsteiners present - one in twenty of the male population...All the way down in the carriages the passengers sang the everlasting national song of Schleswig-Holstein...when I reached the place of meeting, the first thing I heard was the same eternal tune - the entire multitude singing chorus, as though they had never listened to it before. Then a gentleman with a bald head mounted the deal rostrum, the front of which was decorated - after the ordinary German fashion - with boughs of the fir tree, and proceeded to bellow away trumpery platitudes, in a tone as if his mouth had been crammed full of plums...To say the truth, the whole of the grand opportunity was utterly wasted. In the midst of the greatest excitement here, a large part of the population of Schleswig-Holstein are called together, and the whole business ends in the clatter of brass bands, the waving of hats, and the shouting of "Es lebe Frederick the Duke of Schleswig-Holstein".' From "Illustrated London News", 1864.