NUREMBERG.
383
The urea of the entire municipality is now about 16,000 acres, of which
400 acres fall to Nuremberg within the walls, and it is noteworthy that while
there are ten inhabited houses (that is, independent blocks of tenement dwellings)
to every acre of ground in the old town, there is not one house per acre in the
rest of the urban area.
Nuremberg, both in its old and new parts, is a well-built town, a fact for
which it lias to thank the presence of abundant stores of sandstone at no great
distance. Brick is also used to a considerable extent, yet substantial stone
walls are the rule, and not uncommonly the fronts are elaborately ornamented,
even in working-class dwellings of more recent erection. It is a noticeable fact
about the housing arrangements of Nuremberg that the old parts of the town
are not given up, as is usually the case in ancient places, to the working classes
and the poor. Of hardly any quarter in the old town proper can it be said that
it is distinctively an industrial quarter. The very worst of the dwellings
and many of the tenements high up beneath the gables are certainly so
inhabited, but on the other hand most of the oldest property in even the
narrower of the streets and “ Gassen ” is still occupied by middle and lowermiddle
class families. All that can safely be said is that the working classes
are scattered over the meaner streets of the old town ; nowhere do they form
distinct colonies.
The streets are well paved for the most part, and they are also kept clean.
Not much planting has been done, however, even in the new districts, where there
is no obstacle in the way of steep and narrow streets, though greater attention
appears to be now given to the matter. Some of the overgrown moats and
walls make shady promenades ; there is a public park, and open spaces have
been reserved in different parts of the town. A sluggish stream, the Pegnitz,
intersects the town from east to west.
The town owns the gasworks, the waterworks, the electrical power and
light station, the tramways, a large cattle market and abattoir, baths, library
and reading rooms, a theatre, an art gallery, savings bank, pawnshop, a chemical
laboratory for . the special purpose of analysing articles of food, a number of
cheap dwellings for municipal employees, and, for the special benefit of the
working classes generally, it maintains a labour registry and dining rooms in
various parts of the town at which workmen can take their mid-day meals.
Few factories are nowadays found within the old town, and those that
exist are small ; most of the brush, pencil, and toy factories are in the newer
districts, and further out still are the large machinery works. Hence in order
to come to close quarters with the working classes it is necessary to visit the
environs.
Occupations, Wages, and Hours of Labour.
From very early times Nuremberg was an important centre of commerce and
industry, for its geographical position caused it to be the meeting place of numerous
highways and trade routes passing north and south, east and west, and hence it
was able to attract to itself enterprise, skill, and wealth from towns less favourably
situated. Its reputation for the production of bronze and beaten metal work is
ancient and world-wide ; of the former, priceless and imperishable specimens
are seen in the form of ecclesiastical monuments and a series of fountains in
public places. It is thus no accident that the metal and allied industries should
continue to-day, if not in their old forms, to afford to the working classes of
Nuremberg one of their principal sources of employment. Of 66,538 persons
engaged in factories and workshops (including the handicrafts) in 190o,
38,100 or 57*2 per cent, were occupied in the working of metals in various
ways and in the manufacture of machinery and mechanical apparatus. I he
metal industries are multifarious and include the manufacture of cycles,
scientific instruments and other products of the fine mechanical trades
(.Feinmechanik), brass and metal goods, bronze goods and bronze colours, wire
and wire goods, gold, silver, and tin beaten ware, gold leaf, aluminium, brocades,
and mechanical toys. Other important industries, employing large numbers of
persons of both sexes, are the manufacture of lead pencils, brushes of various
kinds, wooden and carved goods, the manufacture of margarine and oils,
chromo-lithographic work ; and in Fürth, an adjoining town, mirrors. There
is little textile industry in the district.
