By right of churches full of relics, antique buildings, and places curiously named, Lübeck is, no doubt, a jewel of a town to antiquarians. Its streets are badly paved, but infinitely cleaner than the streets of Hamburg. I did not much wonder at that, for I saw no people out of doors to make them dirty, when I exposed myself to notice from within doors as a solitary pedestrian, upon my way to take a letter to a goldsmith in the market place. The market place is a kind of exchange; a square building with an open court in the centre, around which there is a covered way roofed quaintly with carved timbers. In this building the mechanical trades of Lübeck are collected, each trade occupying a space exclusively its own under the colonnade. Here, all the tradesmen are compelled to work, but are not permitted to reside. Each master has his tiny shop-front with a trifling show of goods exposed in it, and his small workshop behind, in which, at most, two or three men can be employed. In some odd little nooks the doors of these boxes are so arranged, that two masters cannot go out of adjoining premises at the same time without collision.
Though my friend in Lübeck was a stranger, as a brother jeweller he gave me friendly welcome. Having inquired into my resources, he said, “You must take the _viaticum_.”—“It is like begging,” I answered.—“Nonsense,” he replied; “you pay for it when you are in work, and have a right to it when travelling.”—“But I might find employment, on inquiry.”—“Do not be alarmed, my friend; there is not a job to be done in the whole city.” I was forced, therefore, by my friend’s good-natured earnestness, to make the usual demand throughout the little group of goldsmiths, and having thus satisfied the form, I was conducted to our Guild alderman and treasurer. A little quiet conversation passed between them, and the cash-box was then emptied out into my hand; it contained twenty-eight Hamburg shillings, equal to two shillings in English money.
I returned to my hotel and slept in a good bed that night. The morning broke heavily, and promised a day’s rain. Through the lowering weather and the dismal streets I went to the police office to get my passport _viséd_ for Schwerin in Mecklenburg. Most dismal streets! The Lübeckers were complaining of loss of trade, and yearned for a railway from Lübeck to Hamburg. But the line would run through a corner of Holstein, and no such thing would be tolerated by the Duke. The Lübeckers wanted the Russian traffic to come through their town and on to Hamburg by rail. The Duke of Holstein wished to bring it through his little port of Kiel upon the Baltic.