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Show THE MOST PICTURESQUE CITY IN EUROPE. Robert Shackleton awards this title to the old German city of Rothenburg, famous fa-mous in Crusading days and since almost al-most forgotten. He writes of it as follows fol-lows in Harper's Magazine: For a thousand years Rothenburg has been a city. For more than 500 years it was a free city of the empire. It is not like those ancient towns which, through being huddled near the base of some great castle; it is not like those towns that were protected by powerful princes; for it has maintained itself by its own unaided sturdiness. If great barons came to Rothenburg, they came to receive re-ceive protection, not to give it, or else they came to be entertained with the lavish open-handedness that made the city a place to. which emperors themselves them-selves found pleasure in resorting. By crusaders and pilgrims, Rothenburg Rothen-burg was held in affectionate regard, not only for its generous hospitality, but because, seen from the river, it bore a c striking resemblance to Jerusalem. But there was. order in those times of turbulence; tur-bulence; and in an old, old house used by Palestine's pilgrims, and still known as Pilgrim's house, there is an ancient stone, bearing upon it an ancient carving carv-ing of a hand . and a hatchet, with the ominous inscription, "He who quarrels in this house shall have his hand cut off." Yet since those early days the town has been comparatively forgotten. -Even yet it has not become a haunt of the tourist and the traveler, although each year a few Americans resort thitherward, thither-ward, bringing back tales of this city that out-Nurnbergs Nurnberg. It. is easily reached, being on a little branch line from the railway between Frankfort Frank-fort and Munich. It is a place where the sightseer cannot can-not go wrong, for everywhere is fascination. fasci-nation. There are both stateliness and ; beauty. There are towering houses ; with criss-crossed fronts. There are deep dungeons under the Rathhaus, reached by stairways dripping drip-ping with moisture, into, which not a ray of light can enter; and in one of ! these lungeons, some five centuries ago, I the men of Rothenburg placed the bur- gomaster who, more than any other in f the long burgomisterial line, gave to the I city power and wealth and prosperity. But they charged him with conspiring f with the emperor, and not only gave I him no light, but edged their animosity I by deliberately giving him no food. It is in all a fiercely dramatic story; for fc friends who were still faithful tunnelled to the cell, and mnrllv nut thrnuni. ttr, - prodigious wall, end reached the prisonerbut pris-onerbut only to find him dead. Nowadays they treat unpopular burgomasters bur-gomasters with more consideration. Each burgomaster is chosen- r three years, and at the end of that t.me he is either elected for life or gives place to a successor. But an election for life does not give unchecked power, for it is a simple matter with -these townsfolk, if they tire of a life-chosen mayor, to make him "so crazy with vexation," as it was expressed to me, that he is glad to resign and accept the pension that they palliatively offer. Only recently they thus got rid of one. |