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THE SKETCH-BOOK

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SCHINDERHANNES, THE GERMAN ROBBER.


At the commencement of the French Revolution, and for some time after,
the two banks of the Rhine were the theatre of continual wars. Commerce
was interrupted, industry destroyed, the fields ravaged, and the barns
and cottages plundered; farmers and merchants became bankrupts, and
journeymen and labourers thieves. Robbery was the only mechanical art
which was worth pursuing, and the only exercises followed were assault
and battery. These enterprises were carried on at first by individuals
trading on their own capital of skill and courage; but when the French
laws came into more active operation in the seat of their exploits,
the desperadoes formed themselves, for mutual protection, into
copartnerships, which were the terror of the country. Men soon arose
among them whose talents, or prowess, attracted the confidence of
their comrades, and chiefs were elected, and laws and institutions
established. Different places of settlement were chosen by different
societies; the famous Pickard carried his band into Belgium and Holland;
while on the confines of Germany, where the wild provinces of Kirn,