Cologne, proposed a toast which he afterwards to some extent tried to explain away, but which was long remembered by the Germans. "No Prussia! No Austria! One great united Germany, firm as its hills!" At that period, the most satisfactory bond between Austria and Germany would have been found in the Zollverein which had been established by Prussia. A German named List came to Vienna in 1844 for the purpose of encouraging this union; and a banquet was held in the Hoher Markt at Vienna at which List gave the toast of "German Unity," which was welcomed with loud cheers, while the health of Metternich, proposed by the American Consul, was received in dead silence. In the meantime, the discussions on public affairs were growing more and more keen; and, as the news arrived of the various rebuffs to Metternich mentioned in the last chapter, the reformers gained heart. Yet it still seemed doubtful whether they could enlist the sympathy of the poorer classes on the side of Constitutional liberty. The Estates of Lower Austria, however willing to make certain concessions to popular feeling, showed none of that care for the improvement of the condition of the poor which had been prominent in the Hungarian Diet, and also in the Lombard petition. The horrible contrast between wealth and poverty, during the distress of 1846 and 1847, is illustrated by the following facts:--In the year 1846 a widow in Vienna killed one of her children and set it before the others for food. About the same time, a Viennese banker gave a dinner at which strawberries were produced costing in our money about a pound a-piece!