Perth Amboy evening news., 1923-09-18
Geographic News
Bulletins by the
National Geographic Society
Hamburg Has Come Back

Hamburg Has Come Back
Though Hamburg, the fourth
commercial city of the world before
the World War, has been doing
more shipping in the first five
months of 1923 than it did in the
same period of 1913, to the average
American woman's mind, the name
of the city suggests just one thing
the trimming on her grandmother's
stiff cambria petticoats," says a bull
letin of the National Geographic
Society from its Washington, D. C.
headquarters.
Hamburg has always been a jeal-
Gus rival of New York, London, and
Liverpool, the three other great COM
merical cities at whose ports more
vessels dock than visit the German
harbor. During 1921 nearly 10000
ships representing a tonnage of 20,-
100000 and flying flags from all over
the earth, entered the Hamburg har-
Dor as against a net tonnage of 3d.
000, 900 for New York harbor during
the same period. Hamburg and
Bremen have the honor of being the
chief gates of intercourse between
Germany and the United Kingdom
and the United States.
IS n River HOfL
unlike most of the other great
commercial cities of the world, Ham
burg does not lie within a stones
throw of. the ocean. About ninety
miles from its mouth in the North
Sea, where a tributary of the Elbe,
the Alster, has been damned to
form two lakes, Hamburg has been
built, its earliest beginnings having
hnnn a 20 ct1a - Gho ~ ~, n ry1Iah
stood on the spot in 81. Its harbor
is broad and deep enough for the
largest vessels. The docks are among
the finest in the world, and will ac-
commodate $50 ships at one time.
Most of the German railroads I'LL
timately lead to the city and numer-
I Gus canals bring their traffic to its
portals. Hamburg has a very inter-
esting, if dirty, old district along
these canals where the poor of the
city live in dark houses and damn
cellars. When the tide is out these
canals become empty and the women
and children of the district immed-
lately out and wade about in
their muddy bottoms to look for ar
ticles which may have been dropped
overheard by the boats. Three can
non shots are sounded when the tide
begins to turn to tell the scavengers
that soon the waters will come rush
ing into the canals.
Old Customs and Costumes Cling
The State and Free City of Ham
burg, comprising 16S square miles, is
a republic, its constitution bearing
the date Of January Z, 1921. In
1920, it's population of 1,O91,O74,
more than a million of whom live
in the city proper. made it the most
densely populated of all the Ger
man states. Its average of more than
5000 persons to q square mile, gave
1t more than twice the density OF
the State of Bremen, the next in
order, and nearly 6 times the density
Of Lubbock, the third in order. The
public debt of the city at the end OF
1920 was nearly three billion marks
spent chiefly for public works.
Hamburg streets and market
places are typical of those of many
German towns. In the markets wo-
men may he seen wearing yokes on
t1eir shoulders from which hann
big wooden buckets filled with milk
A few OF them still cling to theii
wooden shoes and brigh: col0rec
costumes. Ard some OF them still
hitch thu mseIves to their vegetable
ana milk carts and draw the load,
through the city streets