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A long time ago the good town of Cologne was inhabited by a host of dwarfs, and the honest population knew a great many stories about them. The workmen and artisans especially had, through the assistance of the little wights, far more holidays than are marked in the calendar.

On the door-post of a house in Farringdon Street, not far from the Circus, stood in those days a small brass plate, announcing that the "Ludgate News Rooms" occupied the third and fourth floors, and that the admission to the same was one penny. We were a seedy company that every morning crowded into these rooms: clerks, shopmen, superior artisans, travellers, warehousemen all of us out of work.

Its membership was recruited from those who in the East had been small farmers, artisans, or workingmen in the more skilled trades; independent, plain, rather rough, thoroughly democratic, a trifle contemptuous of "silk stockings," outspoken, with little heed for niceties of etiquette or conduct.

To ease their pious hearts, they formed confraternities all over Spain, for the worship of the Host. They called themselves "Unworthy Slaves of the Most Holy Sacrament." These grew at once very popular in all classes. Artisans rushed in, and wasted half their working days in processions and meetings.

The designs are nonsensical, he declares, and all his admiration is for the cunning artisans who have imitated the hatchings and shadings and hair-strokes of the pencil by the finest curves of inserted black stone. But the true romance of handiwork at Siena is to be seen in the wondrous stalls of the choir, under the coloured light of the great wheel-window.

In reality it was a union of two mansions; the southern part he planned for himself, the northern part for his two daughters. For a year and a half more than six hundred artisans were employed on the interior; sixty stoneworkers were imported from Europe. The capaciousness, the glitter and the cluttering of splendor in the interior were regarded as of unprecedented lavishness in the United States.

There were no good sea-ports, and Moscow, the capital, was situated very far in the interior. Then, besides, Peter not only had no ships, but there were no mechanics or artisans in Russia that knew how to build them.

We hoped to pacify them in course of time and put an end to the wars which they carry on with one another, so as to derive service from them in future and convert them to the Christian faith. De Monts' band was made up largely of artisans, who at once began with vigour to erect dwellings. A mill and an oven were built; gardens were laid out and many seeds planted therein.

Art thou of them? but no, thou art not, thou hast not their yellow blood. I suppose thou belongest to the family of wandering artisans called . I do not like you the worse for belonging to them. A mighty speaker of old sprang up from amidst that family."

Soon afterwards the horror-stricken Jews read in the papers the following imperial order, dated March 28: Jewish mechanics, distillers, brewers, and, in general, master workmen and artisans shall be forbidden to remove from the Jewish Pale of Settlement as well as to come over from other places of the Empire to the City and Government of Moscow.