316
MAGDEBURG.
During the past 15 years there has been a steady decline in both the birthrate
and the death-rate of Magdeburg. The infantile mortality rate, however,
has fluctuated considerably, as will be seen from the following Table :—
Year/
1891
1892
1893
1894
1895
No. of children
dying
before reaching
one year
of age per
1,000
live-born.
239
269
255
258
272
¡Year.
1896
1897
1898
1899
1900
No. of children
dying
before reaching
one year
of age per
1.000
live-born.
239
263
273
253
267
Year.
1901
1902
1903
1904
1905
No. of children
dying
before reaching
one year
of age per
1,000
live-born.
244
209
232
253
244
The total area comprised within the municipal boundary of Magdeburg is
about 14,000 acres. Of this only 2,100 acres are occupied by buildings together
with their yards or gardens. Of the remaining area 2,200 acres are occupied by
streets, railways, public recreation grounds, and burial grounds, while 660 acres
represent the water surface of the Elbe. The existence of so large an area of
water within the precincts of the town is due to the fact that Magdeburg is
traversed by two streams, the Elbe proper and the " Old Elbe,” which, before
being re-united just within the northern boundary of the town, have formed an
island about three miles in length, tapering to a point at one end and gradually
widening to a maximum of about a mile towards its southern extremity, where
the principal public recreation grounds of the town (the Rotes Horn and the
Stadtpark) are to be found. (Indeed except for the Citadel, the municipal
harbour and a small residential district, the whole of this large island lying within
the municipal area of Magdeburg remains more or less rural in appearance.)
The limits of what constituted Magdeburg before 1871 are defined by the
left arm of the river Elbe on the east and by a semi-circle of open spaces
corresponding to the line originally occupied by the fortifications on the southwest
and north. Within this limited area, measuring about a mile and half
from north to south and about half a mile from east to west, are all the principal
business streets and most of the offices of the Municipal and Provincial
Administration, as well as the central railway station ; and although the central
part of Magdeburg is being gradually deprived of its resident population by
migration to the periphery, the process of depletion is much less rapid than in
most other German towns. In December, 1905, there were still 56,000 residents
in this part of the town, i.e., only 6,000 less than there were 15 years previously.
The fact that a considerable proportion of those who still remained were people
of the manual labour classes is a circumstance which distinguishes Magdeburg
from most of the great German towns, in which the central parts are gradually
acquiring a character similar to that of the City in London.
This part of Magdeburg is traversed from north to south by two wide,
straight business streets, each measuring about 150 feet across and so providing
ample room for a double line of electric tramways. These streets, being near
the central railway station, are among the first to attract the attention of visitors,
and are apt to produce an impression of spaciousness which it takes some further
experience of the town to correct. The space between these two main thoroughfares
and more especially that between the Breiteweg (the chief business street),
and the river front (an area corresponding to that between the Strand and the
Thames Embankment in London), consists for the most part of old, narrow
streets in which the majority of the houses are inhabited from ground floor to
attic, and where all that is least satisfactory in the housing conditions of the
town is concentrated.
