Page:Heinrich Karl Schmitt - The Hungarian Revolution - tr. Matthew Phipps Shiel (1918).djvu/26

 Press-bureau of the Premiership then, likewise then an editor. Somewhat apart was Baron Ludwig Hatvany, editor of the Pesti Naplò, and an author—then Editor-in-chief Ludwig Purjesz, Editor Paul Kéri, Editor Ludwig Magyar, as well as leaders of the Social-Democrats, Garbai, Kunfi, and some of the Radical Bourgeois Party.

Let the above-mentioned Ludwig Magyar be specially noted. He was the Secretary of the National Council of the Revolution-Bureau, got through for days the most fabulous amount of work, and was, besides, Keeper of the Great Seal. And it is a fact that the National Council had neither stamped note-paper, nor any other sort of printed thing. Only one single seal. One single india-rubber seal. It is a little piece of History.

This little round seal represented during the first days of the revolution the omnipotence of the State's authority. Ludwig Magyar, who had the handling of it, says of it: "This seal of the National Council was the greatest power in all the land. The sight of it put barracks in motion, brought up batteries, directed machine-guns and forage-trains, opened the banks, and shut the drink-shops, set printing-presses working, and provided benzine, commanded the payment of wages and subsidies, sent orders to Ministers—in short, governed." This little round stamp, which the reader finds reproduced in the reproduction of my passport, was the most potent and the most singular, the most reliable and trusty agent of an Executive which has ever existed.

By morning the sailors, having adhered to the National Council, had meanwhile brought the Danube monitors opposite the town. The greenish grey steel-fishes lay without order under steam, and blinked out of their dun-painted guns over the town.

A morning misty and moist credit up over the town, and the early risers looked with wonderment round them. Heavy military motors hummed about the streets, echoes of numerous shots cracked from the walls, electric vehicles stood abandoned about the streets, like children's