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238 KIESBECK’s TRAVELS THROUGH GERMANY.
Nurenberg is an ugly town, which grows every day more deferted. At the end of
the fifteenth century this town contained above fifty thoufand male inhabitants, who
were not above one-fourth of the whole; whereas the whole population now hardly
amounts to a fixth part of the number. In the courfe of the lalt years eleven hundred
men have died every year. Many hundred houfes ftand quite empty, and the others
are tenanted only by fingle families. The inhabitants are {till a very induftrious people;
and it is a very pretty fight to fee’the little children employed in making the various
toys, for the manufacture of which this place is fo diftinguifhed in Europe.
I am furprifed to find fo many German writers laughing at thefe productions of the
Nurenberghers, and making a proverb of their induftry. Is not the great exportation
of thefe commodities a fufficient juftification of the mode in which thefe people employ
their time? But thefe reproaches are the more unjuft becaufe Nurenberg has long
produced artifts who vie with the beft Englifh ones, in making mathematical and phy-
fical inftruments. You meet no where, out of England, with fuch good manufactures
in fteel, iron, and copper, as you do here. Will any man then fay he has a right to
blame thefe people, becaufe, amidft their more important bufinefs, they find ufeful and
profitable employments for their wives and children? Nurenberg is far fuperior to
Augfburg in the arts.
The great caufe of the ruin of this town is the ariftocracy. I could not have be-
lieved, had not refpectable citizens of Nurenberg told it me, the ill treatment which
they receive from twenty or thirty families, in whofe hands the government is. From
time to time every citizen mult have an inventory of his effets taken, and I do not know
for what reafon, give a third or fourth part of them to the regency. Exclufive of the
evil of thefe numberlefs gifts, it is extremely bad policy ina commercial ftate, to compel
_ the merchant to inform every one of the profit of his trade. ‘Thefe patricians have like-
wife a number of families in their intereft, amongf{t whom they divide the employments
of the ftate, which are very confiderable. All this renders it not furprifing to find that
the rich citizens leave the city, and endeavour to emancipate themfelves by taking re-
fuge inthe Auftrian or Pruffian territories.
The morals of the Nurenbergers are better and purer than thofe of any other Ger-
man city. The magiftrate is particularly anxious to put a {top to fornication. Ido
Not exaggerate, but relate a real fact when I affure you, that the young men of the
city underwent a phyfical vifitation by fome of the members of the magiftracy attended
by phyficians. ‘There is a very characteri(tical print of this bufinefs, in which the de-
puties are reprefented in their bufinefs with their fpectacles upon their nofes.
Nurenberg has a more confiderable territory belonging to it than any other imperial
city. The number of its fubjects in the country is eftimated at four hundred thoufand.
Thefe the regency does not govern in fo arbitrary a manner as it does the inhabitants of
the city; or if it does, this does not prevent the country from being very well culti-
vated, though there is a great deal of fand about it. I have not beheld prettier vil-
lages any where than there is here. Every. thing befpeaks a great degree of opulence
in the farmers, who, as well as the town’s people, remain faithful to their old drefs.
The margraviates of Anfpach and Bareith, exhibit, in point of indultry, a ftrong
contra{t to the induftry of the bifhoprics of Wurtzburg and Bamberg. Nature has
not nearly been fo liberal to them; and yet the inhabitants of thofe countries, though
loaded with much greater taxes, are in much better circumftances than thofe of the
former. ‘The cities of Erlan, Anfpach, Schwaback, and fome others, have fome very
good manufaétures. The prefent Margrave, who is the laft branch of a houfe, which
II promiles
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