Baltic RussiaHarper's New Monthly Magazine, July 1890, Henry Lansdell
DRINKING-CUP
From the Hall of the Blackheads we returned to the Ritter-Haus, where I had already vainly called, hoping to find Baron Richter, whose name had been given me as of one cognizant of city statistics. Here we saw the Knights’ Hall and about three hundred coats of arms of the Livonian nobility, who here hold their triennial parliaments. The constitution is still aristocratic, and rests in the hands of the various Estates of the city.
LUBECK WELCOME-CUP.
The First Estate1 (half of them merchants and half lawyers, and in whom is vested the supreme power) is formed of a council of four burgomasters and sixteen councillors. The Second Estate is formed by the greater guild, consisting of merchants and men of learning, for whom a bench of aldermen and Mayor act as committee of the whole, the members being divided into full citizens, who may be elected to office, and “brothers,” who can only choose and vote. The Third Estate is the lesser guild, or corporation of artisans. Any decree in municipal affairs to be valid requires the agreement of these three Estates. A Fourth Estate, or corporation, now politically unimportant, consists of the Honorable “Blackheads.”2 Traces of the former importance of these last still exist in the pews and monuments of the cathedral church, whither we next went, chiefly for the purpose of hearing the organ, new in 1883. It is one of several that claim to be the “largest in the world,” and is blown by a gas-engine of four-horse power. It has 6826 pipes, and I think I counted 126 stops. There is little of architectural interest in the cathedral, but it contains the tomb of the first bishop of Livonia.
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