PLAUEN.

Plauen,  or,  to  give  the  town  its  full  official  designation,  Plauen-im-Vogtlande,
  is  the  most  southerly  as  well  as  the  most  westerly  of  the  five
principal  towns  of  ¡Saxony,  and  the  fourth  among  them  in  point  of  population.
Its  geographical  position  in  relation  to  the  other  four  large  towns  is  perhaps
best  defined  by  picturing  a  triangle  having  at  its  apex  Leipzig  on  the  northern
frontier  of  the  kingdom,  and  for  its  base,  a  line  crossing  the  southern  portion
of  ¡Saxony  in  a  direction  parallel  with  the  range  of  the  Erzgebirge,  i.e.,  from
west  by  south,  to  east  by  north.  At  the  eastern  extremity  of  this  line
would  be  found  Dresden,  and  at  the  opposite  extremity  Plauen,  while  midway
between  these  two,  and  still  on  the  slopes  of  the  Erzgebirge  would  be  found
Chemnitz  with  the  colliery  town  of  Zwickau,  about  20  miles  to  the  southwest, ­
  or  about  midway  between  Chemnitz  and  Plauen.  The  town  resembles
Chemnitz  and  Zwickau  in  being  surrounded  by  a  cluster  of  industrial  villages
for  whose  products  it  is  the  collecting  and  distributing  centre.  It  has  the  same
advantages  of  proximity  to  the  Saxon  coalfields,  and  the  same  lack  of  facilities
for  water  transport,  since  the  small  river  on  which  Plauen  stands—the  White
Elster,  one  of  the  many  tributaries  of  the  Elbe—is  unnavigable.  As  regards
railway  communication,  however,  Plauen  occupies  a  peculiarly  favourable
position  ;  being  the  last  of  the  important  stations  on  the  main  line  of  the
Saxon  State  Railway,  running  south  into  Bavaria  and  linking  up  the  railway
systems  of  North  and  South  Germany.  A  service  of  trains  crossing  a  portion
of  the  Erzgebirge  also  maintains  communication  between  Plauen  and  the
Bohemian  town  of  Eger,  although  owing  to  the  steepness  of  the  gradients  this
communication  is  somewhat  slow.
Being  the  centre  of  the  German  lace  making  and  embroidery  trade,  Plauen
occupies  a  position  corresponding  to  that  of  Nottingham  among  the  manufacturing
towns  of  the  United  Kingdom,  Calais  among  those  of  France,  and  St.  Gall  among
those  of  Switzerland.  Modernity  is  the  predominant  characteristic  of  the  town,
for  the  greater  part  of  Plauen,  as  one  sees  it  now,  has  been  built  within  the  last
dozen  years.  From  the  river,  on  the  western  bank  of  which  old  Plauen  has  been
built,  the  modern  town  has  extended  upwards  in  a  series  of  long,  wide,  straight
streets  cf  four  and  five  storeyed  buildings  branching  from  the  right  and  left  of
the  main  business  thoroughfare  and  promenade  (the  Bahnhofstrasse)  which
leads  from  the  old  Town  up  a  steep  incline  to  the  central  railway  station—a
distance  of  about  two-thirds  of  a  mile.  Each  of  these  parallel  streets  is  crossed
by  other  parallel  streets  of  similar  appearance  with  a  regularity  which  would
be  monotonous  in  its  effect  but  for  the  constant  change  of  level  due  to  the  steep
rise  in  the  ground  from  the  river  upwards—a  rise  of  250  feet  in  two-thirds  of  a
mile,  with  occasional  gradients  of  one  foot  in  ten.  In  consequence  of  this  rise  it
is  possible  from  almost  any  street  corner  to  obtain  a  view  over  a  large
part  of  the  town  and  into  the  "hilly  and  wooded  country  beyond.  The  difficulties
of  horse  traffic  on  such  sloping  ground  account  for  the  entire  absence  of  any
kind  of  smooth  paving  material  such  as  wood,  concrete  or  asphalt,  rough  setts
or  cobbles.  The  somewhat  exposed  situation  of  the  town  at  a  height  above  the
sea  level  varying  from  1,066  to  1,480  feet  would  in  some  measure  account  for
the  absence  of  smoke  and  grime,  a  circumstance  which  is  also  in  part  due  to  the
extensive  use  of  electricity,  gas  and  benzine  as  motive  power  in  the  lace  making
and  embroidering  establishments.
The  municipality  owns  large  tracts  of  land  outside  the  town  boundaries.
Thus,  while  the  total  urban  area  amounts  to  7,700  acres,  the  land  owned  by
the  municipality  amounts  to  4,900  acres,  of  which  2,900  are  outside,  and  2,000
inside  the  urban  boundary.  Of  the  total  extent  of  municipally  owned  land
3,700  acres  consist  of  forest,  of  which  86  acres,  at  the  immediate  outskirts  of
the  town,  have  been  converted  into  a  public  park.  Other  means  of  public
recreation  with  which  the  municipality  is  identified  are  the  town  theatre
3  E  2

2'JOöö