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ty was rough, and the amount of benevolence small, though family feeling was strong. United with violence and robbery, we find the commencement of a very modern system of police; the first prosecutions on account of offences of the press. We are to a certain extent aware that three hundred years ago, the life of individuals was of less value than now; but we shall yet learn with astonishment from the old narrative, how frequently deeds of violence and blood disturbed the peace of households. We find that in a quiet burgher family the grandfather was the victim of premeditated murder; the father killed another in self-defence, and the son was attacked on the public road by highwaymen, one of whom he killed, but was mortally wounded by the other. Lastly, it will interest many to observe how the great theologian who then divided Christendom into two camps, exercised an influence as family counsellor even on the shores of the Baltic, and how by his word he brought the souls of strangers to obedience and reverence. The following communications are again taken from the comprehensive autobiography of Bartholomaeus Sastrow, Burgomaster of Stralsund. His own life was unusually varied and rich in experiences. He was sent, when a young man, with his elder brother to the Imperial Court of Justice at Spire, to manage his father's lawsuit and to seek a livelihood for himself. He was first in the service of lawyers, then of one of the commanders of the Order of St. John, and afterwards found his way to Italy, in order to wrest from the hands of the Romish ecclesiastics the heritage of his elder brother, who had been crowned with laurels and ennobled by the Emperor as an improvisatore in Latin poetry, and who afterwards, on account of an unfortunate love affair, had gone with a broken heart to Italy and died in the service of a cardinal. The younger brother returned home from Italy in the midst of the confusion of the Smalkaldic war, entered into the service of the Pomeranian dukes, who sent him as political agent to the Imperial camp, and solicitor to the supreme court of judicature of the Diet of Augsburg. He then settled himself in Greifswald, and gained, as an expert notary, practice and wealth in Pomerania, removed to Stralsund, became Burgomaster there, and died at an advanced age in great repute as a skilful, cunning, hot-headed, and probably often hard and partial man. Thus he begins his narrative:-- "About the year
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