n, far more than four fifths of their
property were destroyed. And in what a condition was the remainder!

Precisely similar was the fate of the smaller provincial towns, as far
as one can see from the preserved data. We will give only one example
from the same province. The old church records of Ummerstadt, an
agricultural town near Coburg, famed, from olden times, throughout the
country for its good pottery, report as follows:--"Although in the year
1632 the whole country, as also the said little town, was very
populous, so that it alone contained more than one hundred and fifty
citizens, and up to eight hundred souls, yet from the ever-continuing
war troubles, and the constant quartering of troops, the people became
in such-wise enervated, that from great and incessant fear, a
pestilence sent upon us by the all-powerful and righteous God, carried
off as many as five hundred men in the years 1635 and 1636; on account
of this lamentable and miserable condition of the time, no children
were born into the world in the course of two years. Those whose lives
were still prolonged by God Almighty, have from hunger, the dearness of
the times, and the scarcity of precious bread, eaten and lived upon
bran, oil-cakes, and linseed husks, und many also have died of it; many
also have been dispersed over all countries, most of whom have never
again seen their dear fatherland. In the year 1640, during the
Saalfeldt encampment, Ummerstadt became a city of the dead or of
shadows; for during eighteen weeks no man dared to appear therein, and
all that remained was destroyed. Therefore the population became quite
thin, and there were not more than a hundred souls forthcoming." In
1850 the place had eight hundred and ninety-three inhabitants.

Still more striking is another observation, which may be made from the
tables of the Meiningen villages. It is only in our century that the
number of men and cattle of all kinds has again reached the height
which it had already attained in 1634. Nay, the number of houses was
still in 1849 less than in 1634, although, there the inmates of the
smallest village houses, even the poorest, still anxiously endeavour to
preserve their own dwellings. It is true that there is a trifling
increase of the number of inhabitants in 1849 over that in 1634; but
even this increase is dubious when we consider that the number of
inhabitants in 1634 had probably already experienced a diminution from
sixteen years of wa