of country folk of the neighbourhood from whom a jury of twelve farmers were chosen to decide his fate. The verdict was not long in doubt. Wullenweber was convicted and sentenced to death, his body "to be quartered and torn on four wheels." With his death. came practically the end of the glory of this famous Hanseatic League.

Several of its outposts were soon lost and its nearer "factories" diminished in prestige and power. The Steelyard in London was one of the last to disappear; but as the "merchant-adventurers" of England grew stronger, and were themselves able to supply the English kings with gold, the money of the German Hansa became less necessary and less able to buy monopolistic privileges. Among its strongest opponents was Sir Thomas Gresham.

One by one its cities deserted it. In 1603 only fifty were enrolled under its banners, and of these but fourteen paid fees and had a vote in its councils; but it was left for the Thirty Years' War, which tore Germany into bits and reduced her rich men to paupers, and her principalities into petty collections of poorly fed, poorly clad people, finally to snuff out this once proud and powerful League of Commerce.

When the Treaty of Westphalia was signed in 1648, all that remained was a certain privilege to the three "free cities" of Germany, Lubeck, Hamburg and Bremen. This freedom was taken from Hamburg and Bremen by Bismarck in 1888, while Lubeck had been obliged to surrender hers some twenty years before. These cities nevertheless are still self-governing and independent, though not in their former sense. And thus closes a chapter of the Romance of Commerce.

Commerce brings wealth, wealth brings strength, strength brings mastery, and since the control of her merchant-adventurers ceased, the proud Lubeck of the thirteenth century has never even approached the importance of the period of their sway.

VII

FAIRS AND THEIR POSITION IN

COMMERCE

HE art of trading presents many problems, and the problem of how best to reach his public is one that still confronts the modern merchant. But the solution, in an age of newspapers and cheap travel, is a very different matter from the solution found by his predecessors when communication between peoples was difficult, slow and expensive. Before steam and electricity had been harnessed into the service of man, journeys of any length, great or small, were performed mainly on foot, on horseback, or in small boats. Roads, if roads they could be called, were dangerous places for peaceful folk, and such movement as there was in times of peace was almost entirely inspired and controlled by religion. Religious gatherings have been not only encouraged but required by the priests of every persuasion since the world began, and in those far-off times people were made to feel that no hardship was too great when undertaken in the name of their religion. Traders soon found that their easiest method was to take their products to that point which, for one cause or another, gathered to itself the greatest number of people and began to utilize these great religious meetings for their own ends. The people had to be fed, and the necessity of money or its equivalent was recognized by everyone, while in not a few cases it was evident that the high priests or promoters of the religious

festivals themselves utilized the occasion for turning a penny for their cause. Tents and booths were erected outside the circle of the holy ground, and these were allotted, no doubt at full rental, to those traders who came there to sell, and in this we find the origin of the great fairs which for thousands of years were the chief marts of trade.

The word Fair (Old English Feire-French FoireLatin Feriae-meaning days of rest, holidays, or festivals, akin to "festus" meaning festal, from which the word feast is derived) is frequently used in the Bible. In the books of the Prophets we are made aware of the importance of fairs in the then great commercial city of Tyre, "the crowning city whose merchants are princes, whose traffickers are the honourable of the earth" (Isaiah xxiii. 8). We read in Ezekiel xxvii. :

"12. Tarshish was thy merchant by reason of the multitude of all kind of riches; with silver, iron, tin, and lead, they traded in thy fairs.

"14. They of the house of Togarmah traded in thy fairs with horses and horsemen and mules.

"16. Syria was thy merchant by reason of the multitude of the wares of thy making: they occupied in thy fairs with emeralds, purple, and broidered work, and fine linen, and coral, and agate.

66

19. Dan also and Javan going to and fro occupied in thy fairs bright iron, cassia, and calamus, were in thy market.

"22. The merchants of Sheba and Raamah, they were thy merchants they occupied in thy fairs with chief of all spices, and with all precious stones, and gold.

66

27. Thy riches, and thy fairs, thy merchandise, thy mariners, .. shall fall into the midst of the seas in the day of thy ruin."

And the merchant traders mentioned here claimed ancestry from families named in Genesis x. 3 to 7.

Historians tell us the religious festivals of Egypt were veritable fairs, and fairs also took place in the streets of ancient Rome. Romulus, Servius, Tullius and the republic at its commencement are all said to have instituted fairs for the purpose of attracting people to