whoever hit oftenest won something. Spirited boys climbed up
a smooth pole to fetch a cock out of the basket which was hung at the
top.

The shooting-ground was fenced in by barriers or ropes, but alongside
it stood the tents and booths, where goldsmiths laid out their goblets,
vases, spoons, and chains. The pewter-booths were great favourites,
before which they gambled for household utensils, throwing dice in the
_brente_, which was painted red and white, similar to our backgammon
board; anxious faces thronged round the gambling-booths; vagrants and
vagabonds staked more on the game than their last stolen penny; but
they were not unobserved, for the city police in their festal attire
paced gravely along these booths to see that no offence was committed
to disturb the peace of the shooting-ground. Special attention was paid
by the giver of the feast to the bowling-ground, which was then not so
frequently found in town or country, as now. There were often two,
indeed three, prepared for the festival; here, also, there were prizes
affixed. Thus, at Breslau, 1518, an ox and pewter utensils were bowled
for, on two grounds. In Silesia, Saxony, and Thuringia, they were
favourite additions to the festival.

But of all that made the festival agreeable to the people, and attained
to the greatest development, was an entertainment of a most doubtful
character,--the fortune's urn, the modest ancestor of the state and
other lotteries. As early as 1467 it made its appearance at the
cross-bow meeting at Munich. In 1470, at the great prize-shooting at
Augsburg, it was a well-known part of the programme; the prizes were
goblets, materials for dress, velvet girdles, and weapons; there were
twenty-two prizes, and more than 76,000 tickets, at eight pfennigs
each; a cook won the best prize, which was an agreeable evidence to
the people that it had been carried on honourably. By means of the
rifle-shooting at Zurich, in 1472, the urn was introduced into
Switzerland; the tickets there cost one shilling each. The drawing was
much the same as now. There was scaffolding erected in the public
place, before the council-house, and thereon a booth, in which the
prizes were placed; beside it, the secretaries and the urns. There were
two urns, into one of which the names of those were thrown who had
drawn a ticket, in the other were the prizes and blanks; a boy of
sixteen, who was placed between the urns, drew from both at the same
time. First, the