They endeavoured to give marks of distinction in every direction, and to provide as many marksmen as possible with prizes; but our ancestors did not object to humiliate by bitter jests those who had performed ill. Prizes were awarded to those who hit the bull's-eye, also to those who had shot oftenest near it, and if his remaining shots were not near enough for him to gain a chief prize, he had a special present. But the great prizes were for the marksmen who, at the end of the shooting, scored the greatest number of shots in the circles. All who could not obtain a prize within the prescribed number of shots, had the right, before the end of the meeting, to contend among themselves for smaller prizes. All the prizes of the festival, were settled by the givers of the feast, and they were reckoned in the programme collectively with their worth in silver. Every shooter at the beginning of the festival before his name was inscribed, had to make a deposit of money; this deposit was not insignificant, and became higher in proportion to the pretensions of the festival. Whilst at a former period two gulden had been deposited, it rose to six and eight Imperial gulden in the last fifty years of the prize shootings; indeed they deposited as much as twelve Imperial thalers at the cross-bow shooting given by the elector Johann Georg at Dresden in 1614, which, according to the value of silver and corn, would answer to about thirty thalers of our money. But undoubtedly all prize shootings were not so aristocratic. A portion often of the deposits at these festivals was voluntary. The obligatory deposits were turned into secondary prizes, and these were distributed in small sums among as many of the shooters as possible. With the voluntary deposits, small articles of plate were frequently bought for an after-shooting. Sometimes also the giver of the feast spent something for this; in that case these deposits of the shooters were employed as small money prizes for the after-shooting.