Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/518

494 M A N M A N is the most regularly built town in Germany, consisting of twelve parallel streets intersected at right angles by ten others, which cut it up into about 130 square sections of equal size. These blocks are distinguished, after the American fashion, by letters and numerals. Except on the south side all the streets debouch on the promenade, which forms a circle round the town on the site of the old ramparts. Outside this ring are the suburbs of Schwetz- inger Garten to the south and Neckargarten to the north. Mannheim is connected by a handsome bridge with Ludwigshafen, a rapidly growing commercial and manu facturing town on the left bank of the Ehine, in Bavarian territory. The Neckar is spanned by a suspension bridge. In 1880 Mannheim contained 53,545 inhabitants, of whom about 4500 were Jews, and the rest Roman Catholics and Protestants in nearly equal proportions. Ludwigshafen contained 15,012 inhabitants. Nearly the whole of the south-west side of the town is occupied by the palace, built in 1720-29, and formerly the residence of the elector of the Palatinate. It is one of the largest buildings of the kind in Germany, covering an area of 15 acres, and having a frontage of 650 yards. The left wing was totally destroyed by the bombardment of 1795, but has since been restored. The palace contains a picture gallery and collections of natural history and antiquities. The large and beautiful garden at the back forms Plan of Mannheim. the public park of the _ town. Among other prominent buildings are the theatre, the arsen al, the synagogue, the " kaufhaus," the town-hall, the railway station, and the observatory. The only note worthy church is that of the old Jesuit college, the interior of which is lavishly decorated with marble and painting. The square in front of the theatre is embellished with statues of Schiller, Iffland the actor, and Dalberg, intendant of the theatre in the time of Schiller. Mannheim is the chief commercial town on the upper Rhine, and yields in importance to Cob- lentz and Cologne alone among the lower Rhenish towns. The staple commodities of its trade are tobacco, grain, petroleum, hops, timber, and coffee. Its new harbour, constructed at a cost of 650,000, and measuring 2300 yards in length, is the most extensive inland harbour in Germany. It is entered annually by 3000 river craft, carrying nearly 700,000 tons of goods. The railway goods station and warehouses in connexion with the harbour cover 100 acres of ground. The principal industrial products of Mannheim are machinery, iron, brass, india-rubber, sugar, mirrors, chemicals, wall-paper, and cigars. The manufac tories of Ludwigshafen produce aniline dyes, soda, tartaric acid, alum, artificial manures, and lime. Mannheim is the seat of the central board for the navigation of the Rhine, of a chamber of commerce, and of the supreme court of Baden. Ten or twelve different countries are represented here by their consuls. The schools and public institutions of Mannheim include a gymnasium, a "real- schule," an industrial school, a high school for girls, a public library, a large poorhouse, three hospitals, and an orphanage. History. The name of Mannheim was connected with its present site as early as the 8th century, when a small village belonging to the abbey of Lorsch lay in the marshy district between the Neckar and the Rhine. To the south of this village, on the Rhine, was the castle of Eicholzheim, which acquired some celebrity as the place of confinement assigned to Pope John XXIII. by the council of Constance. The history of the modern Mannheim begins, however, with the opening of the 17th century, when Elector John Frederick IV. founded a town here, which he peopled chiefly with Protestant refugees from Holland. The strongly fortified castle which he erected at the same time had the unfortunate result of making the infant town an object of contention in the Thirty Years War, during which it was five times taken and retaken. In 1689 Mannheim, which had in the meantime recovered from its former disasters, was captured by the French under Melac, and ruthlessly destroyed. Ten years later it was rebuilt on an extended scale and provided with fortifications. For its subsequent importance it was indebted to Elector Charles Philip, who, owing to ecclesiastical disputes, trans ferred his residence from Heidelberg to Mannheim in 1720. It remained the capital of the Palatinate for nearly sixty years. In 1794 Mannheim fell into the hands of the French, and in the following year it was retaken by the Austrians after a severe bombardment, which left scarcely a single building uninjured. In 1802 it was assigned to the grand-duke of Baden, who caused the fortifications to be razed. Ludwigshafen, originally only the t&te- du-pont of Mannheim, received its present name in 1843, and became a town in 1859. Towards the end of last century Mann heim attained great celebrity in the literary world as the place where Schiller s early plays were performed for the first time. It was at Mannheim that Kotzebue was assassinated in 1819. See Feder, Geschichte der Stadt Mannheim, 1875 ; and Unglenk, Praktischer Filhrer (lurch Mannheim, 1880. MANNING, ROBERT, commonly known as Robert of Brunne, a monk of the priory of Brunne or Bourne in Lincolnshire, wrote in the beginning of the reign of Edward III. a metrical history of England from the landing of the imaginary Brute to the end of the reign of Edward I. The work has no independent historical value ; it professedly follows Peter of Langtoft s Chronicle from the Anglo-Saxon or " Inglis " invasion downwards, and Wace for the previous "British" story. It is a lively narrative, written "not for the lered bot for the lewed," and it has a certain interest as a landmark, not only in the history of the English language, but also in the history of national sentiment. Manning is warm in praise of the deeds and the character of Edward I, "Edward of Inglond," although he deplores the Norman Conquest as a " bondage," and says concerning the death of Harold that " our freedom that day for ever took the leave." The old monk is our first avowedly "popular" historian. He wrote for the entertainment of men who knew neither Latin nor French, and in his prologue comments humorously on the " quaint English " and subtle rhymes of his predecessors, claiming for himself purity of language and simplicity of metre. A passage in this prologue has often been quoted as bear ing on the authorship of the romance of Sir Tristram, Manning also translated William of Waddington s Manuel des Pechiez under the title of Handlying St/nne, in 1303, and is plausibly conjectured to be the author of Medy- tacyuns of the Soper of oure Lorde I/iesu, translated from Bonaventura s Vita, Christi. He is not a bald rhymester, but uses language with skill and effect, and in some places where he departs from his originals shows genuine poetical rapture. MANOMETER, or PRESSURE GAUGE, is an instrument

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