The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-04-26

Gustavus Adolphus. so that there are suf- ieient associations in the place to feed the imagination of the most eNacung tourist.
 The town Is exceedingly quaint and 1t is difficult 10 say which affords the great CT amount of pleasure, to stroll through it's narrow mediaeval streets where the architecture Of the houses puts riddles to the historian or to visit a hill just across the Tauber and view the city with it's myriads of towers when 1t Is hathed fin the warm glow of an afternoon sun. Odd are the streets. odd are the houses and odd are the pictures that one sees in the churches of the place. The town is extremely hily and il seems to visitor to note iron trap doors in the street, upon the lifting of which he discovers that they are but the lids to flights of stairs that lead to other streets below. one of the quaintest sights is the old mill built to be used in case of a siege. lt had i've stones which were turned hy To horses so that deprivation of water power by the enemy would not cut off the supply of flour, In the postoffice tower Is cu- rious mechanical clock which at noon presents two automatons, TillV and the ex-burgomaster who accomplished the draining of the Emperor's goblet The manil<ins salute each other, raise the goblet to their lips and having emptied the vessel turn their faces to the public whom they salute. Equally naive are the pictures in the churches Here is to be seen that famous anachronism which IOQanh ba bttah a,,a nf Iar reading with a pair of pinoe neg. Tn olden times the Emperors were almost deified and many episodes of their lives were portrayed in the church paintings, but lt remained for Rothenburg to cap the cli- max by representing an operation for gall stone upon one of the Emperors. Even nameless persons are honored and in the chapel of the Holy Blood Is to be seen a figure in remembrance of the arch itect of the church who in jealousy and rage threw himself from the soaffold and was killed because an apprentice to whom had been assigned the completion of the northern tower of the church had sur passed his master in deicacy of outline and gracefulness of curve.
 Interesting and amusing are many Of the epitaphs to be read within the churches. Thus the inscription upon the tomb of a Swedish officer who was killed
 
 mortally injured by shot, my soul now enjoys eternal joy" Again young we'd ded couple of the same age died of the same disease upon the same day, which is told in the legend: "Johan Jacob Bezol- tus, resembling a beautiful tulip, Anna Maria Hartmannin, as delicate as a rose have lost their leaves by a sharp north wind when the fatherand suffered they were gathered in one grave. Alike in age, in disease and in death--until they will be revived, they rest here in God Roth born in 1907 and died on the 18th day or December, 1881"
 One of the oldest churches of Rothen- burg is that known as the Shepherd 8 church, and strange to say, St. Wolf gang was it's patron saint. A legend has if that the remarkable resemblance of the city to Jerusalem caused the Jews to decide upon selecting 1t as the second Je- rusaem. The wells were to be poisoned. the guards of the towers assassinated and the town taken possession of by the Jews. But the plot was discovered and it's execution prevented by an intelligent shepherd boy in commemoration of which event the church was built. An annual shepherds festival was instituted and regularly observed down to 1T73 The fes- uvities began with a church service and ended In q public dance.
 stone staircase leads from the Shep- herds church to the city walls and over looks the Jewish cemetery.
 If one wishes rest, if one desires to be transplanted to an era many centuries agone and to allow his ina gination free scope in repeoplng his environment with men and women of the past, there is no place better fitted for the accomplishment than in Rothenburg. the jewel of Fran cona.
 It would he interesting to the reader to draw a mental picture of siege of a