against the free courts, particularly among the clergy.
Civilization was increasing, and political institutions becoming more
developed, in Germany; the lords of the land grew restive under the
subjection of their people to the acts of a secret and strange tribunal,
no longer supported by imperial power. Alliances of princes, nobles, and
citizens were made against the Westphalian courts, and their power
finally ceased, without any formal decree of abrogation.

In the sixteenth century the Vehm still possessed much strength; in the
seventeenth it had grown much weaker; in the eighteenth only a few
traces of it remained; at Gehmen, in Muenster, the secret tribunal was
only finally extinguished by a decree of the French legislature in 1811.
Even to the present day there are peasants who have taken the oath of
the Schoeffen, whose secrecy they persistently maintain, and who meet
annually at the site of some of the old free courts. The principal signs
of the order are indicated by the letters S.S.G.G., signifying _stock,
stein, gras, grein_ (stick, stone, grass, tears), though no one has been
able to trace the mysterious meaning these words convey as symbols of
the mystic power of the ancient _Vehm gericht_.

_WILLIAM TELL AND THE SWISS PATRIOTS._

"In the year of our Lord 1307," writes an ancient chronicler, "there
dwelt a pious countryman in Unterwald beyond the Kernwald, whose name
was Henry of Melchthal, a wise, prudent, honest man, well to do and in
good esteem among his country-folk, moreover, a firm supporter of the
liberties of his country and of its adhesion to the Holy Roman Empire,
on which account Beringer von Landenberg, the governor over the whole of
Unterwald, was his enemy. This Melchthaler had some very fine oxen, and
on account of some trifling misdemeanor committed by his son, Arnold of
Melchthal, the governor sent his servant to seize the finest pair of
oxen by way of punishment, and in case old Henry of Melchthal said
anything against it, he was to say that it was the governor's opinion
that the peasants should draw the plough themselves. The servant
fulfilled his lord's commands. But as he unharnessed the oxen, Arnold,
the son of the countryman, fell into a rage, and striking him with a
stick on the hand, broke one of his fingers. Upon this Arnold fled, for
fear of his life, up the country towards Uri, where he kept himself long
secret in the country where Conrad of Baumgarten from Altzelen la