Reinhold Pauli and Philip Arthur Ashworth

“ The soil is fertile, and, with the exception of forest land (14% of the whole area) , is mostly devoted to market gardening. Trade is centred in the city of Lübeck.
The constitution of the free state is republican, and, by the fundamental law of 1875, amended in 1905 and again in 1907, consists of two assemblies. (1) The Senate of fourteen members, of whom eight must belong to the learned professions, and six of these again must be jurists, while of the remaining six, five must be merchants. ”

“ Lübeck joined the North German Confederation in 1866, profiting by the retirement from Holstein and Lauenburg of the Danes, whose interference had prevented as long as possible a direct railway between Lübeck and Hamburg. On the 27th of June 1867 Lübeck concluded a military convention with Prussia, and on the 11th of August 1868 entered the German Customs Union (Zollverein) , though reserving to itself certain privileges in respect of its considerable wine trade and commerce with the Baltic ports. ”

“ The council appointed its own officers in the various branches of the administration. In the face of so much self-government the Vogt presently disappeared altogether. There were three classes of inhabitants, full freemen, half freemen and guests or foreigners. People of Slav origin being considered unfree, all intermarriage with them tainted the blood; hence nearly all surnames point to Saxon, especially Westphalian, and even Flemish descent. ”

“ From 1166 onwards there was a Saxon count at Schwerin. Frisian and Saxon merchants from Soest, Bardowiek and other localities in Lower Germany, who already navigated the Baltic and had their factory in Gotland, settled in the new town, where Wendish speech and customs never entered. About 1157 Henry the Lion, duke of Saxony, forced his vassal, the count of Holstein, to give up Lübeck to him ”