[p. 559]
|559| a passage in which it is said that “Württemberg has the sad advantage over other countries of nourishing a race of men of its own, which in the rest of Germany has no longer been known since the times of Dr. Faust, – the scribes. This breed is”, it goes on, “the more burdensome to the industrious part of the people as it is equally shameless and base, on a favourable occasion to lay claim to the first offices of the state or, on an unfavourable one, to deprive the last class of the people of its nourishment, in all cases always to live from another’s labour”. – In a most remarkable, detailed petition of the district office of Horb (Section XIX, p. 26 ff.) one reads that what is drawn annually in scribe earnings amounts on average to more than one, indeed in further statements drawn from the records one reads that it amounts to six to seven annual taxes.
Such a presentation was now indeed very much in contrast with the tone of the assembly, which always spoke of the three-hundred-year happiness of Württemberg under and through its former assembly of estates, and with the assurance that its restoration was the quite simple remedy for the grievances just brought together, the total mass of which must rather seem to be outweighed by this single scourge of the land. One may find that presentation still more contrasting with the zeal of the assembly for the old right, of whose members a part themselves, and among them such coryphaei as Herr Bolley, were principals in the scribe dynasty, while most of the other deputies, by their station, had brothers, sons or other relatives in this class, or could have for their sons and relatives the right to a share in the advantages of this “scourge of the land”. The assembly had nevertheless entered upon this subject and had appointed a committee for it, as stated. But one will be astonished, or, if one likes, one will not be astonished, when one sees the dilatoriness with which
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