NUREMBERG. 
391 
holder of a workman’s ticket can travel between any two points as often as he 
likes, Sunday included ; and for 2s. od. a month he may travel to and from his 
work any distance once a day. 
A system of house inspection has been exercised by the municipal authority 
since 1901, but on restricted lines, and special trained inspectors have not yet 
been appointed. A Committee of seven, nominated by the Magistrat * or 
Municipal Executive, and containing representatives of the Town Council as 
well as technical and legal experts, has charge of this work. 
Although Nuremberg by no means suffers from lack of dwelling houses 
to-day, there was a time when the working classes were not so well provided 
for. Several years ago the municipality built, in different parts of the town, 
five blocks of houses, containing together 57 tenements, in order to meet what 
was believed to be a pressing need, and from that time to this they have been 
occupied by municipal workpeople. The tenements consist of three or four 
rooms (the kitchen being counted), and the rents are something under those 
of private houses of equal accommodation, with the result that the municipality 
suffers loss financially by the transaction. The State Railway Administration 
has also built a considerable number of small houses, with front gardens, for its 
employees, and it is about to build many more in the neighbourhood of a 
contemplated new goods station. Of industrial companies the Augsburg-Nürnberg 
Maschinenfabrik has erected for its foremen a number of commodious houses in 
villa style near its works on the southern fringe of the town, and building societies 
have been formed for house building on purely business principles. The most 
noteworthy experiment in collective building, however, is that which has been 
carried out by a society formed solely of employees of the Siemens-Schuckert 
Electrical Machinery Company. The subscribed capital is only £5,000, 
and plays no important part in the working of the scheme except that, being 
the investments and savings of the tenants themselves, it gives to the latter a 
direct personal interest in the houses they inhabit. Nearly the whole of the 
£165,000 of capital employed consists of loans obtained on mortgage, at rates 
varying from 3 to \\ per cent., from the Insurance Board of the province, from 
local banks, and from members of the Siemens-Schuckert firm, and with this 
capital 722 dwellings have been built in six colonies excellently planned alike 
as to the accommodation of the individual tenements and the external 
appearance of the property, for there are avenues of trees, playgrounds, and 
sweeps of green sward. The houses are four stories high, and the dwellings 
are of three, four, and five rooms (kitchen included), each having also a 
share of attic and . cellar, while washhouses furnished with centrifugal 
washers are provided for common use. The rents for dwellings of two rooms 
and kitchen range from £8 to £9 per annum, for dwellings of three rooms and 
kitchen from £9 10s. to £11 10s., and for dwellings of four rooms and 
kitchen from £12 10s. to £16 10s., figures which are held to be 25 per cent, 
below the usual rents in the localities concerned. 
Retail Prices. 
Groceries and other Commodities. 
It is a notable fact that in spite of the increase of wages which has fallen in 
recent years to most branches of industry in Nuremberg, the consumption of 
meat and bread per head of the population has for some time steadily fallen. 
The consumption of meat is referred to below. The highest consumption of 
flour fell to 1893, viz., 253'4 lb. per head, 1895 and 1897 coming near this 
figure with 246 6 and 247*2 lb. respectively, since which time the consumption 
has gradually fallen to 227*2 lb. in 1904 and 221*3 lb. in 1905. The higher 
prices which prevailed throughout Germany in 1905 will in large part explain 
the less consumption of meat in that year as compared with the years immediately 
preceding, but they do not throw light upon the fact that the decrease has 
been continuous for a long period, and has been accompanied by no corre 
sponding increase in the consumption of bread, nor yet of beer, which 
forms an important element in the diet of the Bavarian working classes. 
Less bread is consumed to-day than for many years, and the consump 
tion of beer per head was in 1905 the lowest of any year save one since 
1892; taking ~ the average for the last five years, the consumption of beer 
was 56*3 gallons against 75 gallons per head per year during the preceding