§ 17 

If we look at our Guilds and the crowds within them, we shall notice a few well-off Masters, who need no longer sit in their workshops themselves, who live comfortably, dress themselves and their families after the latest fashion, keep a good table every day, pay and receive calls most of the time, and have ten or twelve workmen in their workshops, six of whom work for their food only, the others for a few Dalers a week. I ask, "Does such a man want to leave the country? " He will not do so as long as the Guild can provide him with workmen and takes care that the number of Masters does not become so great that he will of necessity be short of work and thus unable to dictate the price.

But what happens to his Journeymen and Apprentices? That is a more delicate question. I have sometimes heard their swan song and a general complaint in the Country, because they leave for Prussia and Russia; for there those soon become Masters who like.

Fancy! How benevolent are our Guilds not to cast off a poor man's children, but allow them to fill a gap thus opened without any payment.