The master of the mint purchased the metal, defrayed the costs of the stamping, and paid a tax to the Sovereign for every Cologne mark which he struck, which it appears amounted generally to about four good groschen: but he had to pay dear for fine silver, and the wages and other accessories were continually rising in price. If he paid the tax, from one to two thousand marks, weekly to the lord of the mint, he concealed from him the fifty marks which he had struck over and above, and retained the tax upon them for himself; furthermore, he was a sharp coiner, that is to say, he deducted from the money about half a grain in the amount of silver required by the law; he always struck a hundred marks in weight, two ounces too light, which was remarked by no one, and when he knew that the money was to be sent directly into foreign countries, especially to Poland, he was bolder in deducting from the weight. His dealings with the purveyors who procured the metal for him, were not more upright. There was carried on then, throughout the whole of Germany, a secret traffic, which was severely prohibited by the law, and traced with much sagacity by the gate-keepers of the cities, a traffic in false money. What was acquired by the soldier as booty, or stolen by the thief from the church, was smelted by the receivers of stolen goods into flat cakes or conical masses, which in the language of the trade were called "ingots" and "kings;" whatever was clipped from the money in diminishing the proper quantity of silver, or had otherwise to be carefully consigned under a false name, was poured out of the smelting crucible over moist birchen-twigs, and thus granulated: but besides this, by being incessantly bought up, the good coin was exchanged for bad, the small money-changers, most of them wandering Jews, journeyed from village to village far across the frontiers of the German Empire, and collected, as the ragmen do now, their wares from the soldiers, countrymen, and beggars. All the medals of distinguished persons, all coats-of-arms and inscriptions, horse and man, wolves, sheep and bears, thalers and hellers, the saints of Cologne and Treves, and the medallions of the heretic Luther, were bought up for the mint, collected and exchanged. The concealed wares were then packed into a vessel with ginger, pepper, and tartar, and paid toll duty as white lead, wrapped up in bales of cloth and frankincense. There were travelling waggons with false bottoms, which were specially prepared for such transports. A still better safeguard was an ecclesiastic as a travelling companion; but the best of all was a trumpeter, who gave the trader the appearance of being a prince's courier. If it happened that a distinguished lord was travelling towards the same country, it was expedient to bribe him, for he and his suite, their waggons and horses, were never examined at the city gates. Sometimes the agent disguised