ch things were not in his office.

As assistants to the _pritschmeister_, some of the most idle boys of
the city were chosen, and they also were put in fool's attire. Among
this insolent brood the most zealous guardians of the law were to be
found; they easily learnt some of the tricks of their master, and they
carried goose wings, wooden clappers, and short pipes. They fell
like a pack of hounds on any peasant child that ran across the
shooting-ground, and greeted such as had shot ill with grimaces and
monkey gestures. At Coburg they went in procession in a great band,
dressed in black linen with white seams and patches, following a tall
dark man, who wore a similar dress, and trousers after the old
Landsknecht fashion. He was the head shoemaker, Martin Pauker, a
gloomy, haggard fellow, who never spoke a word, but during the whole
shooting was incessantly assuming grotesque disguises. In the
procession he trailed along an enormous linen banner, the doubtful
badge of honour for those who had shot worst of all; but on the return
home he bore the great kettle drum, which he allowed to be beat upon
his back; on the shooting-ground he appeared as a wild man, enveloped
in straw and brushwood; then as a monk or nun; but soon he came in a
splendid dress, riding on an ass, and at last waddled about in
bearskin; he was always disguising himself, always drunk and dismal,
but he had his own quiet enjoyment in the whole affair.[64]

If _pritschmeisters_ were engaged by the givers of the feast, and the
city was in repute for doing its duty, possessed good friends, and had
announced grand prizes, there was sure to be a great concourse. The
invited cities had the festival announced to their citizens by affixing
public notices, or by proclamations. It was with them an affair of
honour to be represented by good marksmen, and these frequently
received money for their journey out of the city coffers, in return for
which, when they went home, they handed over the silk banners they had
won to the council or shooting society. These deputies were generally
men of distinction; but besides these there were other citizens who
went to the meeting at their own cost. Thus at Coburg in 1614, besides
the four shooters who were sent by the city of Schweinfurt, one Hans
Schuessler, a small, insignificant man, had come on his own account. His
fellow-citizens looked askance at him and excluded him from their
society, but he hit the bull's-eye at the fir