Norwich bulletin., 1915-02-06
THE WAR PRIMER By National Geographic Socioty

Hamburg, the great German city on the North sea mentioned so often in press despatcl1es these days, is the New York of Germany; in fact the New York of Europe. It has the same proud confidence of vast riches and a. great commerce, the same careless in souciance about things and people, the same restless wealth hunger, and the same unemotional aIoofness from the stranger. Much as American boys flock from all over the country to try fortune in New York, German boys turn toward Hamburg, the city-state which Is the trading heart of Ger many. Then, too, Hamburg and New
 Hamburg prior to the present war did more business than any other port in the world except New York.
 Both Hamburg and New York are islands of foreign soil in their native lands. Before the war. Hamburg was English and French in tone. In Ham burg alone, of all the German cities, the people earnestly drank tea be- tween and } o'clock in the after moons. Everywhere else in the Father land, coffee, sweet breads and rich cakes are served punctuauy at o'clock. Both of the worlds first ports are cosmopolitan to a point of wild confusion. every tongue and custom being native to their manner, the com mon denominator for the reduction of a WOflu or DSCQlldTiLleS DelIlS lOunO Tn their counting houses and exchanges.
 The city-st Hamburg has an area of 16O square miles, and is exceedingly rich in agricultural, meat, dairy and fruit produce, while the city proper covers barely 29 square miles. The city is a great commission house for Germany and for the world, an enor- nous part of the empires import and export passing through its warehouses. Only one harbor an earth rivals that of Hamburg for nervous, continuous com- motion, ard that harboT is New York.
 There is little old world piquancy about Hamburg. It is as strictly a growth of business and oversee. trade as is the city of New York. Such buildings of historic interest as there are in the city, such art and bohemian life as it possesses, are so effectually crowded into the background by high office buildings. compositions of cum bersome freight drays, the sirens and smoke at the harbor front, and the peculiar expressions on every hand speaking of deals, of profit and loss, and of cent per cent. that they remain unsuspected by visiting Americans, who feel themselves more thoroughly a. proper part of Hamburg than of any other German city, not excepting Ser lin. There are few statues, few muse unls, few narvels of architecture, few things of any genre whose being is derived less from practical advantage than from sentiment.
 Residential and business Hamburg lies upon the north bank of the Elbe, while along the south bank and in deRting it for thousands of yards are hundreds of channels, harborS, canals and slips, worked out in a great, weird tangle of Eharves, warehouses, passen- ger piers, elevators, bridges, railways and all manner and description of ships and products for shipping. Many mil lions of dollars have been spent in the development of this marvellous harbor. Nearly 4O.C00 vessels, both river and oversea, clear from this harbor during a. years course in normal times
 The inner or business city is com posed of an old and new town. The new town, modern in every way arose out of the ashes of that part of Ham burg destroyed by the great fire of 1S42. The old town is for the most part a. warehouse district, and it is pierced hy numerous canals The pride of Hamburg IS the beautiful proYne- naGes around the Binnen Alster, lake