Why, instead of engaging fresh hands at their desks, they would have need soon to discharge some of their old ones! This was the answer that met his ear at every place he applied to, and he had finally to give up all hope of finding work in his native town.
It was the same elsewhere.
The five milliards of ransom paid by France, brought no alleviation of the enormous taxation imposed on Germany to bear the expense of organising the great military machine employed to carry out the war.
The Prussian exchequer alone reaped the benefit of this plunder of the conquered nation; as for the remaining states of the newly created empire, they were not a farthing to the good for all the long train of waggons filled with gold and silver and bales of bank-notes that streamed over the frontier when the war indemnity was paid.

If possible, their position was made worse instead of better; as, from the more extravagant style of living now adopted, in lieu of the former frugal habits in vogue--on account of the soldiers of the Fatherland learning to love luxury through their becoming accustomed during the campaign to what they had never dreamt of in their lives before-- articles of food and dress became increased in price, so that it was a difficult matter for people with a small income to make both ends meet.
Ah, there was wide-spread poverty and dearth of employment throughout the length and breadth of the land, albeit there might be feasting and hurrahing, and clinking of champagne glasses Unter den Linden at Berlin! However, Fritz was not the sort of fellow to grow despondent, or fail to recognise the urgency of the situation.
Long before Eric had gone to sea, he had fancied that Lubeck, with its slow movements and asthmatic trade, offered little opening for the energy and ability with which he felt himself endowed; for, he might live and die a clerk there, without the chance of ever rising to anything else.

He had frequently longed to go abroad and carve out a fortune in some fresh sphere; but the thought of leaving his mother alone prevented him from indulging in this day-dream, and he had determined, much against the grain, to be satisfied with the humble lot which appeared to be his appointed place in life.
Now, however, circumstances had changed.

His place was filled up in the old world; Providence itself forced him to seek an opening in the new.
His mind was made up at once.
"Little mother," said he one evening, when he had been home a month, seeing every prospect of employment shut out from him--his last hope, that of a situation in the house of a comrade's father at Coblentz, from which he had expected great things, having failed--"I've determined to emigrate to America--that is, if you do not offer any objection; for I should not like to go without your consent, although I see there's no chance for me here in Germany." "What!" exclaimed Madame Dort, so startled that she let her knitting drop.

"Go to America, across the terrible sea ?" Fritz had already explained matters to Madaleine, and she, brave-hearted girl that she was, concealing her own feelings at the separation between them which her lover's resolve would necessitate, did not seek to urge him against his will to abandon his project.