thoroughly trounced by “angels of paradise” in the form of lusty companions who were usually unsparing of the rod.  A festive procession through the streets followed.  It was led by two fantastically attired youngsters who impersonated a Norwegian peasant and his wife, and whose duty it was to play tricks upon the sightseers and to amuse them.  After a baptism in the sea the unfortunate youth who figured as the hero of this festival was subjected to a procedure akin to that of roasting a herring in the flue; and it is singular enough that the records show only one case of death by suffocation consequent upon this ordeal.  Good days, however, now followed upon evil ones, and the youthful novitiate was feted and entertained by his companions and made to forget the sufferings and hardships of his initiation.  Many other pastimes were indulged in by the members of the bureaus, which, however, cannot be touched upon here.  Suffice it to say that they were characterized by the humor and roughness of the age.  Despite repeated attempts of the Hansa and of the several cities to put an end to these sports, they nevertheless continued to be practised for centuries, upon the rather plausible plea that they served as a wholesome training for the mercantile youth.  Never before or since, however, has the pedagogy of the rod found so thoroughgoing an application as here.

One of the busiest centres of Hanseatic activity remains to be touched upon:  namely, the small tongue of land near Skanor and Falsterbo, and constituting an appendage of the larger peninsula of Skane or Schonen.  The once prosperous stretch of beach here referred to is now a desert tract of sand, the furrows and ruins on which are the only relics of the busy commercial life once prevailing.  After the herring had during the tenth and eleventh centuries visited the Pomeranian coast in great shoals, it changed its course to the above-mentioned region of the Sound.  The Hanses were not slow to avail themselves of this circumstance.  They succeeded in securing a practical ownership of this most valuable district of Denmark; thereby demonstrating how incredibly incompetent the princes of the land were at that time as regards the utilization of their natural resources.  These princes actually granted to several German cities, and, moreover, to each individually, the right to establish reservations here—­the so-called Vitten—­consisting of fenced enclosures on the coast, within which were erected vendors’ and fish-booths, dwellings, and even churches, all under the administration of special governors appointed by the Germans.  From this point the herring grounds were readily accessible.  The fishing lasted from July until October; and during this time merchants, fishermen, and coopers resorted here by thousands to fish as well as to salt, smoke, pack, and load the produce of the net.  In connection with this industry there were held in the immediate vicinity much-frequented annual markets, the distributing